As organisations tighten their budgets, many HR teams have been forced to cut employees.
But traditional layoffs are expensive and risky, and because organisations want to do it with the least amount of fuss possible, managers have been forced to be creative about getting employees out the door.
Which is why some organisations have started to ‘quiet fire’ employees by intentionally creating an environment that ices out employees, forcing them to leave “voluntarily”.
What is quiet firing?
Managers fail to provide adequate feedback, develop an employee, or simply cut them from responsibilities, which results in the employee feeling isolated and on the out. It’s toxic and leaves the employee feeling pretty miserable.
Quiet firing is squeezing an employee out the door by making them trip over their laces.
Yes, it’s far more subtle than formally firing someone. But it’s more thorny and leaves the employee and organisation with wounds to lick. It isn't good leadership, and it certainly isn’t the right thing to do. At the very least, it tarnishes your organisation's reputation as a good workplace and poisons team trust.
Now, these managers are not necessarily toxic or mean. They may even care about their employees. But they are consistently more absent than present and more distracted by organisational politics than building up their employees.
And when employees don't get direction, ongoing development and long-term career progression, they’re on their way to quitting.
So as an HR manager, it’s important you’re aware of the ways managers covertly set up quiet quitting.
Managers don’t give feedback
We know that employees don’t get enough feedback because on average, one in three haven’t received feedback in the past six months.
Employees need to know what's expected of them and how they’re progressing. Without this natural rhythm, employees quickly lose their ability to be self-aware. And they won't have a firm understanding of what their manager thinks of their performance or the requirements of their role.
So when employees aren’t getting feedback, they feel unwanted and check out.
On top of that, if managers aren’t in tune with employees, they miss important opportunities to celebrate successes, adjust priorities and provide the support needed to help employees succeed. So what can you do about it?
Encourage managers to give feedback.
Because when you give feedback, you become present and are forced to shift your worries about the past or anxieties about the future to the now. US research suggests that employees who have at least one meaningful conversation each week with their manager are nearly four times more likely to be engaged at work.
Managers withhold development
Because so many employees work hybrid, managers are finding it harder to encourage employees in their development day to day. It's natural to pull back from talking about the future in these uncertain times.
However, how employees feel about their development and future in an organisation influences their likelihood of staying put.
Employees expect managers to provide a road map for their careers, while managers expect employees to tell them exactly what they want in the future.
So if a manager starts to retreat from an employee, suggest they create a shared sense of accountability. Because it’s not about giving the employees what they want on a golden platter, the employee needs a career path they can take ownership of together.
Managers exclude employees
In many ways, this comes down to lazy leadership.
Because the best way for managers to lead, is not to lead the meeting, but to lead the room.
Instead of getting uncomfortable and having a conversation with an employee, they take the easy road and just cut them out of meetings, ice them out of new projects and hope they get the hint and leave.
A good way to check if this is happening is to ask the manager for notes from one-on-one meetings. If there are no real records or notes of these conversations occurring, that’s usually a sign that a manager might be trying to set up quiet quitting.
And it’s not right to hope that an employee gets the “hint”. They either think they’re performing well because no manager has told them otherwise, or they’re doing nothing and loving it because they’re not being pulled up about it.
The underlying issue is that managers and employees avoid confrontation, are lazy, or want to be known as ‘nice and easy’. It could be one or all of those things. But they’re the manager. That’s their job. And if they’re not doing their job, it’s your job to let them know it isn’t right.
Part of HR’s role, arguably one of the most important parts, is to help the organisation mitigate risks that arise from complex people challenges. Quiet firing certainly falls into this category.
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