It looks like there is a lot of quiet action going on under the radar in the modern workplace. 

You might have heard about the term “Quiet Quitting” on social media and other news channels, where it has become a popular workplace trend with Gen Z that puts mental health above job burnout. An employee might be a quiet quitter if he finds himself disengaged at work, doing the bare minimum of what is required to be done. Quiet quitting does not actually mean leaving a job but rather an employee who is refusing to join the hustle culture and is forced to consistently perform tasks at work that are quite outside their specified responsibilities. 

There are many employees who say that there is a new buzz floating around social media that is less about protecting your peace of mind and more about pushing you toward the cliff of insanity. The term is “Quiet firing.”

In this article from Business Magnate, we are going to discuss quiet firing and why it is taking the workplace by storm. 

What exactly is Quiet firing?

Quiet Firing describes how managers fail to provide an employee with the right coaching, support, and career development, which ultimately results in pushing the employee out of an organization. 

To put it in simple words, quiet firing is when employees intentionally treat you badly so that you will leave your job. It is very similar to someone who wants to break up with you but does not have the courage to do it by themselves. 

In the worst-case scenario, quiet firing happens when managers allow employees to experience truly toxic or miserable experiences at work as a way to squeeze them out. It is a form of gaslighting. 

While I do agree that it might be a common practice in today’s workplace, it is not a good example of leadership or how to manage employees. 

Quiet firing tarnishes the employer’s reputation as a good person and a place to work, it slowly poisons the team’s trust and can even hurt the ability to keep customers happy when key employees are leaving. 

Perhaps the biggest problem in today’s workplace is the availability of well-intentioned people who are absent managers. Many managers, without meaning to, are quietly firing their team members by not helping them perform, develop, and feel appreciated for their contributions. 

Such managers are not actively toxic or directly hurtful, and they may even care deeply about their employees, but they are more absent than present, more distracted by organizational politics than engaged in building up their teams, and more inconsistent than consistent with their expectations. 

When employees are directed toward their work priorities, ongoing developments, and long-term career progression, they are on their way to quitting. 

How Managers Can Easily Avoid Quiet Firing ?

Quiet firings or Silent Layoffs might be just a new term for a toxic work environment and workplace bullying. In this digital age, where everything is reported online, employers now more than ever have a responsibility to look after the mental health and well-being of their workforce, and one of the important parts of that is having open dialogue and communication with the team members. Not doing so can create resentment and anxiety on the part of the employees. 

There are multiple ways managers and employers can avoid taking part in the quiet firing act and instead make time to see how their employees are truly feeling on a daily basis. 

One of the ways to do so is through regular informal check-in chats. There are great and helpful resources for employers to see how employees are doing in their roles, what is motivating them during the work week, challenges that they are facing, problems related to work-life balance, and more. 

Another way to check the workplace environment is by conducting employee surveys that take the temperature of the workforce and understand how staff are feeling, taking anonymous feedback forms, and conducting robust review procedures to eliminate biases and ensure that the managers are confident in their decisions. 

To avoid quitting, it is also important for the managers to receive proper training on how to have difficult conversations, provide honest feedback on why somebody is not ready for promotions or a pay rise, and also about the steps the employee needs to take to get a promotion or a pay hike, or have more transparency about how a company is performing and whether they can even afford promotion rounds. 

Closing Thoughts

Quiet firing might seem like another word for a toxic workplace, but it is a real thing. A recent poll conducted by LinkedIn asked its users, if quiet firing was something that people experienced, and 48% of those surveyed said that they had seen quiet firing at work; an additional 38% said that it was real and they had faced such scenarios; and around 13% said that quiet firing was not something that they faced. If quiet firing is a tactic being used, an organization will only deteriorate from within and its reputation will falter. Managers need to leverage many other more positive alternatives to bring out the best in their employees and create a healthy and positive culture.  To read more articles related to the topics of leadership, inspiring stories, management, and market insights, please check out Business Magnate.