Quiet Firing Explained: How Toxic Managers Push Employees to Resign

By now, you’ve likely heard about the buzz surrounding “quiet quitting,” but have you heard of “quiet firing”? As a (mis)management tactic, quiet firing may not be new, but it’s certainly being looked at across upper management circles with new eyes. 

In this article, we’ll discuss what quiet firing is, the answer to the question “Is quiet firing illegal,” and most importantly, the quiet firing signs to look out for (and put an end to) among your managerial staff. 

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What is Quiet Firing? 

To fully understand the concept of quiet firing, we must discuss the cultural phenomenon that was—and is—quiet quitting. 

From late 2022 to early 2023, interest in “quiet quitting” spiked on search engines from virtually zero searches to nearly half of a million searches per month. In other words, the concept of quiet quitting was a super trend in the history of employer-employee relationships. 

But what was even more impactful was the data that proved quiet quitting wasn’t just a buzzword; rather, it had real teeth and tangible consequences on the global economy. In late February of 2024, McKinsey & Co. published its think piece, supported by hard research, on “The hidden costs of quiet quitting, quantified.” 

McKinsey analysts figured that in a typical organization, around half of employees are disengaged, and around 10% could be classified as “quiet quitters.” They estimated that, in consideration of the effects of quiet quitting (such as low productivity and attendance, contagious dissatisfaction, low innovation, and poor well-being), the cost of quiet quitting added up to “around 4% of the wage bill for an average large corporation.”

While extensive research hasn’t been conducted on the impacts of quiet quitting on smaller companies specifically, one could assume that in an organization where every hire and every wage dollar counts, the impacts of quiet quitting could be even more severe. 

Quiet Quitting vs Quiet Firing 

In the context of quiet quitting exists the concept of quiet firing. Where quiet quitting may feel to an employee like an act of obstinance or an assertion of autonomy over an employer, the (mis)management tactic of quiet firing turns the tables on the employer-employee relationship dynamic—while retaining all of quiet quitting’s toxicity. 

Quiet firing, in short, can be defined as a manager’s continued decision to make an employee’s experience purposely intolerable or to set an employee up to fail. While the specifics, signs, and symptoms of quiet firing differ across industries, organizations, managers, and roles, the end goal of quiet firing remains the same: to force the employee’s hand so that they must quit the position themselves, instead of being let go by their employer. 

While “quiet firing” might be a newly coined phrase, it’s hardly a new concept. In the 1999 comedy Office Space, director Mike Judge paints a world in which a prototypically horrible manager, Bill Lumbergh (played by Gary Cole) deploys increasingly severe quiet firing tactics against his employee Milton (played by Stephen Root) for years. Eventually, Lumbergh stops sending Milton his paycheck and Milton sets the entire office ablaze. 

While Office Space provides an extreme and darkly comedic take on the quiet firing concept, in the real world, many managers purposefully or passively use some similar quiet firing tactics to make a role unbearable or totally unworthwhile for an employee.

In a study published in the Harvard Business Review, researchers found that a “majority of workers who quit their jobs in 2021 did so because of low pack, a lack of growth opportunities, or feeling disrespected.” 

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What Are the Signs of Quiet Firing? 

As discussed, quiet firing shifts its shape depending on the manager, role, and job duties in question, among other factors. But in general, a business owner or upper-level manager can watch out for the following signs of quiet firing among its workforce: 

• A shift in the amount of work assigned to an employee

  This can come across in many ways, whether via a significant reduction in hours for a wage worker or in fewer opportunities for a salaried worker to contribute to projects in a meaningful way. 

• Micromanagement and nitpicking

  Frequent and unfounded criticism will drive any employee to seek a new role elsewhere. Managers who enforce unrealistic expectations or excessively monitor an employee’s movements may be practicing a form of quiet firing. 

• A lack of coaching and investment in the employee

  When managers want to force an employee out, they often stop investing in the employee’s growth completely. The manager may avoid regular check-ins, the provision of feedback, or ignore the employee altogether. 

• Exclusion from meetings and other team activities

  This is a sign of quiet firing that can be particularly damaging to the employer-employee relationship, causing the employee to feel isolated, and undervalued, and that their input is unimportant. 

• Repeated denials related to promotions or other growth opportunities

  Employees want to learn, expand, and eventually grow within the company. If a manager continuously denies opportunities for an employee to “show their stuff,” they’re not only relegating them to a lesser role and pigeonholing them, but they’re effectively encouraging them to leave the company for greener pastures. 

• Persistent negativity

  Negativity in the employer-employee relationship can be subtle or overt—but either way, it’s often designed, even subconsciously, to drive a wedge between a manager and their report. 
  
  Watch for signs of passive-aggressive behavior, ostracism, or vague and unfounded negative feedback from managers, as these practices can make a team member feel compelled to seek other employment quickly. 

Is Quiet Firing Illegal? 

Quiet firing happens for a variety of reasons, and they depend entirely on the manager themselves. Quiet firing is never the appropriate route to take in the employer-employee relationship, whether you’d like to terminate the employee or not. 

Quiet firing often creeps in when managers want to avoid some or several aspects of the termination process. They may want to avoid making a severance payout, skipping out on the costs associated with unemployment benefits, or harboring resentment toward an employee for personal reasons. 

As a reminder, it’s never legal to take any adverse action against an employee (including any of the above-listed signs of quiet firing) for a discriminatory reason. Discriminatory reasons include but are not limited to, reasons related to an employee’s gender, race, national origin, sexual orientation or identity, religion, disability status, pregnancy status or age (if the employee is over 40). 

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If a manager is seeking to force an employee to quit so the company doesn’t have to support er the requirements of the law or a contract executed between the employer and employee, their actions may also be illegal. In fact, those actions could form the grounds for a wrongful termination claim.

The legality of some of the most common signs of quiet firing differs heavily depending on the circumstances of the situation and the employer-employee relationship; however, no quiet firing tactic is ever advisable. 

RELATED: Wrongful Termination: What Employers Need to Know >> 

Axcet HR Solutions: Your Workplace Culture and HR Compliance Expert

Quiet quitting, quiet firing and other inappropriate workplace practices can change the trajectory of a successful company. Whether you suspect these toxic tactics could be at play at your organization, or you’d just like to get ahead of them in case they do, Axcet HR is here to help you get a handle on your workplace culture.

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