You’ve heard of quiet quitting. Here’s how to tell if you’re being quietly fired

Looking back, MaryAnn Kerr says it was a work call at home on a day off that heralded the beginning of the end of a job.

About five years ago, Kerr, a veteran nonprofit executive, landed a sweet job as vice president of a charity she loved. After about three or four months, her boss called her at home, angry about something seemingly innocuous that Kerr had said during a previous phone meeting.

“It was about something that didn’t make any sense at all … They thought I was going too far, that it wasn’t appropriate to say that.”

It started with what she describes as “a campaign to undermine” by a CEO who seemed to think Kerr was after her job.

“I was locked out of meetings I needed to attend to do my job effectively. I was deprived of information that I needed to do my job,” Kerr told CBC radio cost of living.

Much attention has recently been given to the idea of ​​”quiet cessation,” when employees stay in their jobs but stick to the sheer demands of the role to avoid burnout.

A phenomenon called “silent firing” can have the opposite effect — when employers subtly coerce employees to quit their jobs to avoid the messy business of being fired.

“I’ve heard the term still firing in different countries or in different contexts where … the employers make the workplace such a difficult environment that the worker feels they have no choice but to leave,” said Nita Chhinzer, Associate Professor of Human Science Resources at the University of Guelph’s Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics.

“So it can happen that the employee is overlooked when promoted, his working hours are reduced or suddenly no longer scheduled.”

“A combination of isolation and bullying”

In Kerr’s case, the boss would tell her that her peers didn’t like her and micromanage the way she interacted with her own direct reports. The boss would tell her to hold weekly meetings with her team, Kerr said, but also undermine her authority over them.

“And [the team] literally ignored my emails. You didn’t want to meet me. So it’s a combination of isolation and bullying to some extent.”

Other times the CEO has been combative with her at meetings in front of others, Kerr said, “almost like a fight to kind of nudge me.”

“I even had an episode at a public event where they pushed me out of the way to get to a photo op.”

Kerr’s track record of other similar cases, Cchinzer said. In such cases, it is quite common for the boss to make the offending employee a “member of the outgroup.”

“So they’re not invited to meetings, they’re not invited to lunches,” Cchinzer said. “If there are development opportunities, they will be overlooked.”

Workers can be even more vulnerable to silent layoffs outside of office jobs.

“In some of the high-volume industries, like restaurants, grocery stores, and retail, there’s a very high probability that people will just be dated or their hours will be reduced,” Chhinzer said.

Workers who are more vulnerable are less likely to complain

When workers don’t have guaranteed hours, it makes them much more vulnerable to silent layoffs, she said.

“Without a guaranteed number of hours, these people are often put on minimal shifts, forcing them to find a side hustle to actually support themselves.”

These types of cases can fall under what is known in Canadian labor law as constructive dismissal – which gives workers grounds to seek monetary compensation if they are forced from their jobs. But people who work in grocery stores, for example, probably wouldn’t have the financial resources to take legal action against their employer, Chhinzer said.

Determining whether your case of dismissal by law is considered a constructive dismissal under the law depends on a few important distinctions, said employment attorney Hermie Abraham, who heads a Toronto law firm called Advocation Employment Law.

“Silent layoffs can fall into two buckets. There could be the silent layoff where the employer is detached from just one employee,” said Abraham, who became a lawyer after a previous career in human resources.

This type of silent dismissal may not be legally enforceable as a termination, she said, “but the employee is sort of put out to pasture. [The employer is] don’t invest in them.”

The other type is when employers intentionally do things to displace someone – such as E.g. changing compensation or demotion from manager to individual employee. “The law considers that a constructive termination, and there are remedies available to the employee,” Abraham said.

Take the example of someone who works in a restaurant.

“Let’s say someone worked a really good shift and gets a lot of tips,” Abraham said. “All of a sudden they’re now being transported to a time where they might get the same hours but not the same tips – that could be [fall into the] Category of dismissal for operational reasons because an essential part of their employment, namely their remuneration, changes fundamentally.”

get help

MaryAnn Kerr was eventually fired and is unable to discuss the terms of her departure. But she has advice for those in a similar situation.

“I think it’s important to speak to HR because it’s about protecting yourself,” she said. Ditto for note-taking — Kerr said detailed journaling proved useful in her case.

“And then it’s important to speak to a trusted advisor outside the organization. Tell them what’s happening and ask them what they think.”

If workers think they have a legal case, they should seek the advice of an employment lawyer, Abraham says. If it’s a more subtle case of missing opportunities, she suggests writing to the boss.

An employee can outline the factors standing in the way of their success at work and suggest some solutions, Abraham says.

“Just kind of languishing and being unhappy at work, that’s not a thing,” she said. “Life is way too short to do that.”

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