Layoffs are rising this year, but more companies are finding a way around them to reduce headcounts. It’s called “quiet firing.”
A recent survey of more than 1,100 human resources leaders found 53% of companies are expected to quiet fire employees this year. It’s a tactic designed to make employees want to leave.
Quiet firing can include denying promised raises or promotions, piling on unrealistic workloads, cutting benefits and strictly enforcing return-to-the-office policies. For employees unwilling to remain with the company, they are, in effect, firing themselves.
“They want you to quit. They don’t want to pay severance. They don’t want to pay unemployment, and so if you decide to leave, they don’t have to deal with any of that,” said Julia Toothacre, consultant with Resume Templates, which conducted the survey.
Toothacre, who’s also a career coach and owner of Ride the Tide Collective, said quiet firing is bad for morale in the short term and means more work for other staffers. Long-term, it’s bad for company reputation.
“People are not afraid to talk about how they are treated by their companies,” she said. “If you’re on TikTok and your company has done something bad, somebody is talking about it and it’s being shared. And it’s going to impact their hiring in the future.”
Employees who sense they are the target of quiet firing have few options. Those with a good relationship with their manager can explore a preemptive conversation. Others should check their employment contract for their job description to see if added work or denied promotions violate employment agreements.
In its survey, 85% of companies that have implemented quiet firing tactics said it has been an effective way of cutting employees without resorting to layoffs. Even so, Toothacre said it is not a good approach.
“Employees are a company’s greatest asset,” she said. “I think that they forget that, and it feels like they are forgetting that a lot right now. It creates a negative environment. That impacts culture. It impacts morale. There are so many risks that they take if they use this practice.”
Resume Templates’ quiet firing survey responses of business leaders are online.
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