Is Quiet Firing Happening in Your Workplace?

A poll, recently conducted by LinkedIn News, asked over 20,000 users “have you experienced quiet firing at work?”. 48% of those surveyed said they have seen quiet firing at work and 35% of people said they have experienced it before. With huge companies, such as Meta, being accused of quiet firing, the term has recently been trending on social media, but what does quiet firing mean?

What is quiet firing?

Quiet firing is when employers intentionally treat employees poorly, giving them less opportunities and support in order to stifle their career progress, in hope that they will leave the company.

In a viral LinkedIn post, recruiter Bonnie Dilber wrote, “It works great for companies…eventually you’ll either feel so incompetent, isolated, and unappreciated that you’ll go find a new job, and they never have to deal with a development plan or offer severance. Or your performance will slip enough due to the lack of support that they'll be able to let you go.”.

Characteristics of quiet firing can include:

• An employee going years without being offered a raise or promotion
• Changing the employees’ responsibilities to tasks that require less experience
• Deliberately withdrawing development opportunities
• Managers constantly criticising an employee’s work
• One-to-one meetings consistently being cancelled and/or ignored

During a weekly Q&A in July, Mark Zuckerburg, the founder of Meta (the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), reportedly told his employees, “Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here, And part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might just say that this place isn’t for you. And that self-selection is okay with me.”

In September, Meta disbanded its responsible innovation team which comprised of engineers, ethicists, and academics who were tasked with ensuring Meta's collection of social media sites remained ethical and mitigating the spread of fake news and dangerous material. The affected employees have been given 30 days to apply for other roles within the company. This move could have been made to strip these employees of their ethical responsibility as they move into other departments or pressure the employees into resigning by not directly offering them roles elsewhere in the company.

How can you address quiet firing in your company?

Quiet firing often means that managers are not able to have tough conversations on performance and expectations. Rather than coaching the employee and giving feedback, they instead remove the employee’s responsibilities which often leads to employees feeling unappreciated and can result in the employee quiet quitting or quitting altogether.

Many managers may not realize they are quiet firing employees and may be inadvertently neglecting employees by not allowing them to grow and advance their careers. Managers should look at their team and assess how they are managing individuals’ performances.

Managers should aim to provide feedback on employees’ work and offer opportunities for them to learn and grow, to advance their professional development. Implementing a routine of regularly conducted, well-structured, and documented reviews/one-to-ones, will help both employees and managers by allowing them the opportunity to discuss goals, responsibilities, career aspirations and development opportunities.

The Development Zone hosts hundreds of courses to help employees improve their professional skills. If you’re not already signed up to the system, see what e-learning can do for your firm by visiting: https://www.mydevelopment.zone for a 14-day free trial.

If you would like advice on addressing quiet firing or any other HR-related issue, please contact the team at IHRS by visiting Get in touch | Insurance HR Solutions.