Are you being quiet fired?

I recently wrote about the workplace trend quiet quitting , which has recently taken the internet and workforce by storm. But how familiar are you with quiet firing?

What is quiet firing?

Quiet firing is a term use when a manager works to push out an employee by making them want to quit an organisation.

This can be done in a number of ways such as: creating non-ideal working conditions, withholding coaching or development, pushing off?promotions, or in extreme circumstances it is enabling a toxic working environment and negative tactics such as gaslighting and passive-aggressiveness.

Rather than confronting an employee constructively or working on their improvement plan, the manager resorts to negative tactics to make the work environment unbearable so that the employee wants to quit their job. This concept can appear in different ways both deliberately and inadvertently.

Quiet firing is a symptom of poor management and bad workplace culture.

According to a recent LinkedIn News poll, 48% of employees have seen quiet firing and 35% have actually faced it during their careers.

In addition, according to Harvard Business Review, 40% of employees who experiences quiet firing tried to ignore the problem, expressing reluctance to cause trouble or spark conflict.

Top ten red flags of quiet firing

It can be difficult to determine if you are a target of quiet firing. Red flags to watch out for include:

1. Increased bureaucracy by adding extra layers of policy or process. This commonly turns managers into micromanagers.
2. You are not receiving salary increases over the years.
3. You are not receiving any constructive feedback from your manager on your strengths or improvement areas.
4. If your manager avoids engaging with you or you are being left out of important meetings.
5. Consistent changes to your work responsibilities like reassigning job responsibilities to other employees or not assigning promising new opportunities to you.
6. You have unreasonable performance targets.
7. Increasing workloads or taking away ‘perks’ like flexible working arrangements.
8. Hiding critical or important information related to an employees work, role or organisation matrix.
9. Not receiving reward or recognition for strong performance or achievements.
10. Lack of support from management.

Some way you can protect yourself?

You need to ensure you?understand workplace criteria?for your job role, future promotions and composition structure of your organisation. You should also have a good understanding of the labour rights in the country you are working in.

Knowledge is power. It will help you determine if you are experiencing an unjust exchange or unacceptable working conditions.

Ensure you keep a strong record of the good and the bad. This means you should have written records of your achievements, positive 360 feedback, and examples of strong performance. You need to have clear proof of your measured output and strengths.

In addition, you need to evidence any examples where you think you have experienced mistreatment or have felt undervalued. This can be emails or requesting written feedback from manager or stakeholders.

Try to normalize honest discussions.?You can do your part in modeling open communication. Look for ways you can express your accountability as well as encourage debate or challenging discussions within your team.

Overall, quiet firing should never be tolerated in the workplace and it will always deteriorate a corporate culture. It is guaranteed to lead to a domino effect of low employee moral, terrible teamwork, wasted potential and collateral turnover. Employers should be building their employees up and working to improve a better workplace culture and employee experience.