We’ve seen it happen before—to ourselves or to others. Your boss begins taking away projects you’ve typically owned, or stops commenting on your work on a consistent basis. Maybe they even hire someone to do a similar job as you without outlining how your role will evolve. Overall, it feels like your contributions are ignored, overlooked, and underappreciated, and you’re starting to wonder how long you should stick it out. Thanks to modern lexicon, there’s now a name for this trend: quiet firing.  “They steadily will start to change different employee scope of work, their responsibilities,” says Amber Carmichael, an HR professional and organizational strategist. “There can be conversations, but they’re not conversations that point to any tangible actions that could be taken by the employee to improve or change.” Managers sometimes take this route because it’s the path of least resistance—they and the company avoid being held accountable for the employee’s performance, or having to have the hard firing conversations. “They want the person to make the decision themselves so that they can say the person made the decision” to leave on their own, says Gena Cox, an organizational psychologist and workplace consultant. But Ben Wigert, director of research and strategy, workplace management, at Gallup, is quick to point out that most quiet firing nowadays is really unintentional neglect, not a conscious effort to push an underperformer out of the organization. “It’s so often that managers and leaders have other things on their plate and get distracted from managing their employees individually,” he says. He attributes this to the significant changes workplaces have undergone in the past few years, in part because of the pandemic and subsequent economic headwinds and rise in remote work. “They’re trying to manage up to achieve the new goals of the organization, and in terms of managing down, their employees have more demands than ever from their employer—so they’re trying to bring those two worlds together,” he says. “When that happens, you just have less time and focus to put on your team’s strategy and to invest in each individual employee.” According to Gallup’s latest research, employee engagement at work has dropped since 2020, with 70% of U.S. employees either not engaged or actively disengaged and one in two workers reporting they are open to leaving their company. Wigert argues that quiet firing could be partially to blame, alongside other factors such as widespread layoffs and a post-pandemic pivot toward “quiet quitting.” “It’s not that they’re not doing their job in any capacity,” Wigert says. “It’s not necessarily that they’re angry at their employer, but they’re detached. They’re not all in.” These aren’t the only repercussions companies face if they regularly (or even occasionally) quiet fire staff. Here’s what else organizations and individuals lose out on when they deflect from the tough discussions and force employees to look elsewhere for recognition. 1. Team morale and productivity When employees don’t receive feedback, good or bad, it’s harder for them to succeed because they’re not encouraged to build on the work they’re excelling at, and they’re not given direction or motivated to fix the tasks they’re struggling with. “What [quiet firing] really reveals is a leader’s ineffectiveness at developing the existing talent,” says Cox. There’s recently been a trend of employees staying put, resulting in low quit rates and what some experts are calling the “Big Stay.” When your employees are disengaged because they’re experiencing quiet firing and not going anywhere, they and those around them suffer the consequences. A team member’s departure also has an impact on the staff that stays behind. When it’s unclear why they left, that confusion can turn to concerns around who will be next, or take over their job. “There’s a period of loss and guilt and even grief about a departure. Plus, of course, a person who departs still often leaves work that has to be redistributed,” adds Cox.  If the person left because they were unhappy, the rest of the team will wonder if they, too, are undervalued. “The people who are watching these situations are not naive about it, and they always think, ‘Well, if you’re not optimizing that person, what makes me think you’re going to optimize me?’” says Cox. And if the employee was beloved by others, the team dynamic and culture inevitably shifts. All of this makes it harder for staff to focus and perform at their best day to day. “So without really knowing, you may also be left with employees that this individual has touched that will have a long-term disengaging factor,” says Carmichael. 2. The ability to attract new (or former) top talent When morale is low, recruiting gets harder, too. Current staffers are less likely to refer others to their team or the company if they’re not enjoying their jobs or see quiet firing happening to people they respect. Former employees, meanwhile, might spread the word about the reasons behind their departure to their networks or online, deterring even more people from applying or accepting offers. “A more positive exit experience where people feel appreciated for their contributions, supported, acknowledged—we know that leads to better brand advocacy, more boomerang employees who will come back and try it again, people who speak highly of you, both with other people who might want to work for you, or even consumers,” Wigert says. 3. Brand reputation—and the customers who come with it Consumers want to buy from brands that resonate with their values, and that doesn’t just include topics like sustainability or community involvement anymore. How companies treat their employees matters to many shoppers, and a bad reputation as a result of quiet firing can turn off your customer base and make it more difficult to bring in new audiences. “You quickly find yourself in some compromising positions,” says Wigert. 4. Respect and influence as a leader Quiet firing, says Cox, “really undermines the credibility of leaders.” Not to mention, managers who lean on the tactic too much “end up in this long-term, passive aggressive behavior that ultimately has an impact on the business,” adds Carmichael. But more than preventing your team from trusting, respecting, and listening to you, the habit also hinders your personal and professional growth. When you’re constantly taking the easy way out by not addressing conflicts or issues, you’re losing out on countless opportunities to become a stronger communicator, mediator, and role model.  Without those skills, you’re less likely to move up the ladder or pivot into other roles—because while your current employer might be okay with quiet firing, many others won’t stand for it for fear of what it will cost them. “Folks that they will have access to in the future will not find these things to be acceptable. They won’t tolerate it. They won’t stay around to see who’s next,” says Cox. 5. A strong culture Quiet firing doesn’t just affect the people directly involved or even the team they sit on—like a virus, it can spread across an organization until the entire workforce is defined by fear, distrust, and negativity. “Quiet firing is a culture killer,” says Wigert. “When we start quiet firing, it’s really hard to turn that around for your team.”  Not every performance issue can be solved with feedback, nor is every employee salvageable or worth keeping around long term. But, says Cox, by giving a direct report an equal amount of time, attention, and honesty to their peers, “that person has the opportunity at the very least to feel like they have some agency in the situation. They’re not just a pawn.” However you approach the hard conversations, adds Carmichael, “they need to start from a really genuine place of wanting success for an individual within the business.”

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