In the USA, the term “quiet firing” is used more and more often. Many employers do not fire their employees directly, but instead make their day-to-day work a living hell. Working from home makes “quiet firing” even easier.
“Quiet Firing” – a new trend on the job market scares many Americans. Until recently, one in ten US employees identified themselves as “quiet quitters” and did only the bare minimum at work.
Exerting yourself on the job was no longer an option for 21 percent of all respondents. But now employers are responding to the “quiet quitting” phenomenon with “quiet firing”. The superiors hit back: They often do not fire the employees directly. Rather, they want to get her to quit the job to avoid costly layoffs. Many managers shy away from conflict and hope that employees will throw in the towel of their own accord.
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Typical “quiet firing” methods: Bosses do not answer calls or emails from employees. They don’t invite her to meetings anymore. The employees do not receive any feedback. They are passed over for promotions. In addition, they are now being given specific tasks that they are not comfortable with or for which they are overqualified.
“My emails were ignored. There were no more meetings,” MaryAnn Kerr, who used to work at a nonprofit, told CBC. “Once the boss wanted to have a fight with me in front of others.”
The division into unpopular working hours is also part of “quiet firing”. Employees in the retail, service and catering trades are particularly affected. They now get mostly the layers they like the least.
“Quiet firing is a new name for a concept that’s been around for a while,” HR expert Annie Rosencrans tells business magazine Fast Company (FC). “That’s what happens when managers stop trusting their team members to do the job well. Then instead of giving them direct feedback, they hope that they will quit of their own accord.”
According to industrial psychologist Ella Washington, “quiet firing” indicates poor leadership: “Often managers are not trained enough to have difficult conversations about expectations and performance. Instead of coaching the employees and giving them feedback, you piss them off.”
Some bosses prefer that to providing clear instructions and suggestions for improvement. “They avoid confrontation,” Washington told FC. Some managers may not even be aware of their “quiet firing” approach.
If they were overwhelmed, they would only pay attention to their best employees. “Then they might inadvertently neglect the weaker members of the team.”
Quiet firing is particularly easy in the home office. “If you don’t automatically run into each other in the office, it’s easier to keep someone at a distance,” says Rosencrans. “Because a digital working environment requires targeted communication.”
There was more bad news for Americans working from home this week: According to a recent study, most US company executives are planning short-term layoffs in the face of the looming recession – and home office workers are said to be the first to be hit.
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A KPMG survey also revealed that 90 percent of all American company bosses expect an economic crisis in the coming year. More than half of them are considering layoffs in the near future. This has already happened with companies like Uber, Twitter, Wayfair and Groupon.
Meta (Facebook) is said to be about to cut 12,000 jobs. And according to a manager survey by the Californian software company “Beautiful.ai”, 60 percent of all those surveyed want to eliminate home office positions first.
This study result should be just right for some company leaders: Tesla boss Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon have been a thorn in their side for months. You’ve been calling for a return to the office for a long time.
“Anyone who wants to work from home has to be in the office at least 40 hours a week – or leave Tesla,” Musk told his employees back in 2020. Since then, he’s been tracking their whereabouts with electronic ID cards and sending emails to everyone who do not show up in the office.
In addition to an end to flexible home office hours, American headhunters are also reporting further changes on the job market: The bonus payments for newcomers, which were common until recently, are now no longer available in many places.
Career Coach J.T. O’Donnell reports on the growing fear of his customers: “It’s like I’m watching the whole disaster in slow motion,” she told the New York Times. “At first everyone thought: ‘When I’m ready, I’ll look for a job – that shouldn’t be a problem’. But now it’s a problem.”