3 Quiet HR Trends: Quiet Quitting, Quiet Firing, and Quiet Managing

The Quiet HR Trends gained attention post-pandemic largely due to burnout and post-pandemic work/life balance challenges, with additional factors including the generational shift in the workplace. 

“Quiet HR Trends continue to exist and are agnostic to organization size, industry, or work styles like hybrid or in-person or work from home,” says Erin Hargrove, Director of Business Development & Growth Strategy at Lakeside HR Group. “It’s important to recognize why these trends exist and how generationally people may understand and respond to them differently.”

What is Quiet Quitting?

Quiet quitting refers to the scenario where employees maintain the minimum effort required to keep their jobs but refrain from going the extra mile for their employer. Employees may simply stop showing up to work or gradually disengage from their responsibilities without explicitly stating their intentions to leave.

What is Quiet Firing?

This tactic involves creating unfavorable work conditions to prompt underperforming employees to resign voluntarily. Many employers have turned to quiet firing as a preemptive measure before resorting to layoffs. Some managers resort to quiet firing simply because they don’t want to be the bad guy.

What is Quiet Managing?

Quiet management refers to a management approach that emphasizes subtlety and indirect communication.

The common challenge of a quiet manager is “how do I know the work is getting done (managing the work) while not making employees feel like they are being micromanaged?” While micromanagement has long been recognized as detrimental in the workplace, managers still need to maintain a close connection to ongoing work. Instead of resorting to excessive meetings, it’s often recommended that managers prioritize deadlines and objectives. Many businesses are adopting the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to streamline operations and align employees, thereby minimizing the need for unnecessary meetings.

“Transparency is key in quiet management,” says Hargrove. “Instead of managing to the minutiae of the job, a quiet manager might try to manage to the goal or priority. Communicating specifically: ‘Our goals this month are ____’. When everyone understands the goals, it should feel less like micromanagement when a manager checks in or asks an employee to complete a task in relation to the goal. The communication exchange might be less ‘did you do this?’ and more ‘did we complete our goal?’”

Millennials and Gen Zers and Quiet HR Trends

Millennials and Gen Zers often prioritize work differently from their older counterparts. They are more likely to expect to work their “schedule”. They want the autonomy to be able to live their life as opposed to older workforce generations who are used to a “salaried” more flexible schedule that may require extra/off hours to complete a task or project.

In What Ways Can Organizations Adapt and Respond to the Generational Differences?

It’s important for those on all sides to understand and recognize this generational component, especially where quiet quitting and quiet management are concerned. Managers in older generations may not recognize that even though they are paying a younger generational employee a salary, these employees may be expecting to be managed to the schedule/hour, not salary. Younger generations are seeing work as an actual schedule of time. At the same time, Millennials and Gen Zers do not want to be micromanaged. They want to be quiet-managed.