Your clock seems to have stopped—and when it comes to passing the time, that looming project you could be pioneering sounds like the least appealing thing in the world. You’ve been to all your meetings, answered all your emails, and you’ve definitely earned the right to do the bare minimum—or maybe even less—until it’s time to sign off. After all, that promotion you wanted went elsewhere. Your wages are stagnant. You think your employer seems indifferent to you, maybe it’s time to ignore the job. If this sounds like you, you may be a classic case of the “quiet quitter.” But don’t worry, you’re not alone. Well, you might be a little worried, but we’ll get to that. What is silent shutdown? Quiet interruption has become a buzzword, so much so that this week it was named one of Collins Dictionary’s words of the year (beaten by permacrisis). The idea really took off over the summer, when #quietquitting started trending on TikTok, as queer lifestyle gurus empowered their followers to resist the unsatisfying work culture. Interest in the phrase has skyrocketed, with Similarweb’s analysis showing more than 1.2 million online searches in August alone. There were many who wondered what a quiet break even is. “Simply put, it’s where an employee puts no more effort into their job than is absolutely necessary,” Anisha Patel, an applied research consultant at Steelcase, told Sky News. You may rightly point out that this kind of thing has been going on since time immemorial and the only thing that has changed is that a trendy TikTok personality has stuck a new term on it. I mean, just look at this scene from The Simpsons from 1995. “If you don’t like your job, you don’t go on strike, you just come in every day and do it really half-heartedly!” The role of social media “Nothing in the data suggests that anything fundamentally different is happening,” says David D’Souza, director of membership at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. But social media is thrust upon people in a way that can make the silent break from something we subconsciously stop thinking about and—somewhat ironically—actively work towards. From dieting to making money, hashtagging rallying cries can completely change the way we operate – if we think everyone we follow is doing it, why not give it a try? “What’s new is the ability of social media to broadcast and go viral things that, previously, people wouldn’t have talked about,” Mr D’Souza told Sky News. Professor Emma Parry, from the Cranfield School of Management, agrees that social media has simply put a new face on an old problem. “It’s good that people can ask for support on social media and we know that can be positive – it’s really about voice and that’s increasingly important for workers,” he told Sky News. “If it’s people working their set hours, moving away from the long hours culture we’ve had historically, I’d say that’s a good thing. “But if we mean that workers are disengaged, they don’t want effort, then we know that can make workers less productive.” Should you worry about “quiet firing”? As Mr D’Souza points out, there is something of an irony in people talking so loudly about something “quiet”. But as quiet abandonment rises to the fore in our collective lexicon, will anyone else encounter it? If quietly quitting is about giving voice to your disengagement from your job, quietly firing is the same for employers who have disengaged staff.
Signs You’re Being Silently Fired
By Tim Reitsma, managing director at People Managing People Promotion has stalled – leadership can limit the possibility of promotion without ever having an effect as you watch colleagues move around you while staying in one place indefinitely. Denial of raises – if your boss refuses to pay you properly or doesn’t clearly explain why your co-workers are getting raises while you aren’t, that’s a red flag. Changing tasks or roles – when your boss entrusts your preferred projects to other team members instead of you. Overwhelmed – if you start to notice that your boss is frequently rearranging your priorities, adding extra tasks, canceling or scheduling unnecessary meetings, or otherwise making it difficult to manage your schedule, this may be a sign that he is purposely burdening you. Overwork – if you are constantly doing boring, pointless and awful tasks, this can be one of the warning signs of silent firing. With the transition to hybrid mode, the risk of “silent firing” may have become even greater. Take Microsoft: its latest workplace trends report reveals that while 87% of workers felt they were productive, 85% of bosses said hybrid work made it difficult for them to be confident about it. As a result, some agencies are stepping up surveillance. VMware research found that 57% of UK companies have already implemented or are planning measures to monitor productivity following the shift to hybrids. Natalie Cramp, CEO of data science company Profusion, told Sky News such a “draconian” policy would never work. Professor Parry sees a more positive role for technology, making effective use of platforms such as Teams, Zoom and “internal social media” to build relationships and discuss issues that lead to disengagement. What is certain is that silent firing is not a healthy response. Read more: Apple tells staff to work in office for most of week Whitehall offices don’t have enough desks to bring staff back “Quiet dismissal is usually used if the employer wants someone to…rather than be fired, realize they’re not a good fit, and therefore quit,” says former self-confessed silencer Rebecca Leppard. “It usually works out better for the company because they’re not fired, there’s no dispute — it’s a clean break.” For Ms. Leppard, the silent firing process, being relatively inexperienced at age 26, was terrifying. Since then it has also been a quiet resignation, in one case to withdraw from a “toxic” workplace. Thirteen years after her silent shooting experience, Ms Leppard sees the new lingo as an opportunity to improve practices on both sides. She now runs Upgrading Women, a “retention training” company for women in tech. Whether through salary, advancement or a sense that the work is truly valuable, experts agree that employers must find a way to overcome these “quiet” tendencies. “Trust at work, the quality of management, understanding how employees feel, how motivated they are – if this conversation helps bring them to the fore, that can only be good for people and organizations,” says Mr. D’Souza. As Ms Leppard says, “the dangerous thing about quietly quitting is that you’re paying someone to keep the seat warm.”
