It’s not us, it’s you: How to tell if you’re being ‘quiet fired’

One recent LinkedIn poll of more than 200,000 respondents found that 48 per cent of people had witnessed a colleague being quietly fired. Photo / Tim Gouw, Unsplash

Lucy was living through a classic no break-up break-up - weeks of monosyllabic texts and cancelled plans, and even her emails asking why she was being ignored were going unanswered. “In retrospect it was obvious, and if a boyfriend had been treating me this way, I’d have known what it meant,” she says, “but nobody expects to be ghosted by their boss.”

Welcome to the world of quiet firing.

This summer, social media was aflame with the concept of “quiet quitting” - employees who do the bare minimum to avoid being fired while never mentally committing to the job. It became a hotly debated topic - on one side were the workers, saying their jobs shouldn’t take over their lives; on the other were the bosses, arguing that this sounded like an excuse to let colleagues pick up the slack for a growing Netflix addiction.

Now those bosses are out for some revenge. After two-and-a-half years of employees demanding they work from home four days a week or topping up their income with a “side hustle”, management has had enough.

“To avoid the financial, psychological, and legal costs associated with forcing people out, some companies may intentionally create a hostile work environment that encourages people to leave voluntarily,” wrote Ayalla Ruvio and Forrest Morgeson, two researchers at Michigan State University, in the Harvard Business Review last month. “Of course, on an individual level, this is hardly a new idea. But more recently, companies such as Meta and Tesla increasingly seem to be using quiet firing as a workforce reduction strategy on a wider scale.”

Karen Holden, the legal director of London law firm Doyle Clayton, says it is a pattern of behaviour she has become familiar with. “It can happen when an employee is not seen as a good ‘fit’ for whatever reason, when they are perhaps perceived as being challenging or difficult to deal with, or where there is an agenda to exit them from the business but without the cost of a redundancy,” she says. “Managers will usually withdraw support, time, attention, opportunities and inclusion.”

"Companies such as Meta and Tesla increasingly seem to be using quiet firing as a workforce reduction strategy on a wider scale,” researchers Ayalla Ruvio and Forrest Morgeson wrote in the Harvard Business Review last month. Photo / Justin Kaneps, The New York Times

It’s proving effective. According to the American think-tank the Pew Research Center, the majority of workers in the US who quit their jobs in 2021 did so because of low pay, a lack of growth opportunities, or feeling disrespected. In other words, all the goals of a well-executed quiet firing campaign.

“The aim is to undermine morale,” says employment researcher Maria Kordowicz. “If we feel disengaged at work and alienated from our managers, colleagues and professional identity, over time this is likely to lead to feeling deeply demotivated and to anxiety and low mood. Our confidence may be affected detrimentally, as well as our belief in our own skills and capabilities - and we’ll want to leave.”

One LinkedIn poll this autumn of more than 200,000 respondents found that 48 per cent of people had witnessed a colleague being quietly fired.

Lucy, who works in PR, says that in her case it began subtly but quickly escalated. “At first I wasn’t being copied into key emails or was being encouraged to work from home. But that progressed to my work being undermined and new clients and jobs being given to more junior members of staff.”

Finding herself increasingly anxious and depressed, she resigned - but now wishes that she had fought back. “In retrospect I can see it was a cheap tactic to get me out - and I regret making it so easy for them. I didn’t want to stay, but I did deserve a redundancy package.”

Lucy should have instead documented everything. Individually, being left out of meetings, being subtly criticised or not getting a bonus doesn’t mean much, but, once they form part of a weight of similar evidence, that changes. “If [you can prove] this is targeted, it could be used as part of the basis of a constructive dismissal claim,” says Holden. “An employer cannot unilaterally vary a term of an employee’s contract without their agreement. In every employee’s contract there is also an implied term of mutual trust and confidence. This means that an employer must not, without reasonable and proper cause, conduct itself in a manner calculated and likely to destroy or seriously damage [this].”

These dismissal claims can, however, be difficult to prove and Kordowicz suggests trying to nip it in the bud before calling in the lawyers, namely by voicing your suspicions in person, and ideally not to your boss, but to their boss. “If you feel you’re being pushed out, say this out loud to gauge the company’s reaction,” she says. “If possible, have a trusted colleague with you.” If that doesn’t work, “seek legal advice”.

Worried you’re getting the not-so-subtle cold shoulder? Here are the signs of a quiet firing campaign:

Your boss is never available

You’ve emailed, texted and sent a carrier pigeon, but your manager is always too busy to meet - and yet, suspiciously, you spot him having coffee and pain au chocolats with your former trainee in the office canteen.

You’re left out of important meetings or client lunches

At first it feels like a mistake, but after the fourth missed meeting in a row, you’re worried it’s deliberate. Your invite for the Christmas party feels like an afterthought and major clients have never heard your name.

Your free time has doubled

You’ve read the newspaper and cleared your inbox but it’s only 11am and you have no projects on the horizon. Then you hear your colleagues are inundated. You start watching Netflix on your phone in the loo.

Your workload has tripled

On the other end of the scale, you’re working through lunch, past 7pm and every weekend. Your dreams are one long nightmare of documents and spreadsheets - but nothing you do is good enough, and each time you say you’re drowning, you’re met with an eye roll and an even more unmanageable performance target.

Your working life bores you to death

You’ve become the custodian of every spreadsheet in the building - each one duller than the last - but the fun, creative jobs that you joined the company for? They’re being given to the new guy your boss wants to hang out with at the pub.

Everyone is getting a bonus - except you

Your colleagues are debating the merits of the Maldives or Mauritius for a spot of winter sun and it dawns on you that their bonuses and pay rises were on a rather different scale to your own. You ask your boss why, and all you’re met with is a shrug and some corporate speak about targets.

You’re working from home - a lot

You’ve done the laundry and watched BBC Breakfast and you’re craving a cappuccino at your desk and some office gossip. You tell your boss you’re coming in after all and she tells you not to bother as the intern needs your desk.