There’s been a great hue and cry lately over “quiet quitting”— also known as “working to rule,” “lying flat,” or otherwise declining to go above and beyond what you are paid to do in your job. Quiet quitting looks to many like a reasonable retreat from the round-the-clock hustle culture. But to others, quiet quitting represents disengaged employees sandbagging and shirking all but the minimum effort, not expecting — or not caring — that their employers might fire them for it.
But if we’re going to accuse workers of quiet quitting, we should also acknowledge the phenomenon of “quiet firing,” in which employers avoid providing all but the bare legal minimum, possibly with the aim of getting unwanted employees to quit.
They may deny raises for years, fail to supply resources while piling on demands, give feedback designed to frustrate and confuse, or grant privileges to select workers based on vague, inconsistent performance standards. Those who don’t like it are welcome to leave.
The “work from anywhere” business model offers opportunities for both quiet quitting and quiet firing. Some remote workers, as I discussed recently, are moving out of commuting distance for personal reasons. And some employers are reducing and relocating their office spaces for business reasons. When employers or employees make these changes without due regard for the disruption it causes the other party, it starts to look like they’re daring one another to end the work relationship.
Questions from a couple of readers lead me to ask: What, if anything, do relocating companies owe their workers? Is the attrition of workers who can’t adapt just another form of quiet firing?
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But if we’re going to accuse workers of quiet quitting, we should also acknowledge the phenomenon of “quiet firing,” in which employers avoid providing all but the bare legal minimum, possibly with the aim of getting unwanted employees to quit.
They may deny raises for years, fail to supply resources while piling on demands, give feedback designed to frustrate and confuse, or grant privileges to select workers based on vague, inconsistent performance standards. Those who don’t like it are welcome to leave.
The “work from anywhere” business model offers opportunities for both quiet quitting and quiet firing. Some remote workers, as I discussed recently, are moving out of commuting distance for personal reasons. And some employers are reducing and relocating their office spaces for business reasons. When employers or employees make these changes without due regard for the disruption it causes the other party, it starts to look like they’re daring one another to end the work relationship.
Questions from a couple of readers lead me to ask: What, if anything, do relocating companies owe their workers? Is the attrition of workers who can’t adapt just another form of quiet firing?
Read more: