With “quiet cutting” companies want to get rid of their employees without firing them directly. They use grueling methods.
Are you increasingly being given tasks at work that no one actually wants to do? Are you being transferred to a position that doesn’t challenge you and may also be paid less? And all of this means that you are dissatisfied with your job and are thinking about quitting?
Then the employer may be engaging in “quiet cutting” – and has achieved its goal. The work trend is a strategy that, according to the Wall Street Journal, is becoming increasingly popular, especially in the USA. When companies have to reduce their workforce, they do not resort to layoffs, but rather create working conditions under which frustrated employees ultimately quit their jobs on their own.
“Quiet cutting”: Employees are transferred against their will
“Quiet cutting” means something like “quiet cutting” or “quiet striking” in German: the employer waives a hard cut, i.e. termination. Instead, a grueling game begins that is intended to persuade the employee to leave the company. Employees do not initially lose their job, but rather the position for which they were originally hired. Sometimes a move is also required. This saves companies expensive severance payments, unpleasant conversations and bad press. Bad atmosphere in the workplace and frustrated employees are apparently accepted with approval.
Employees have the choice of working in a position they don’t actually want – or quitting straight away. “They made me feel: ‘We appreciate what you did here, that’s why we didn’t fire you. “You can make the best of it or look for a job somewhere else,” a former employee of the computer company IBM described his experience to the Wall Street Journal. Such restructuring is currently taking place in many US companies, writes the business newspaper. According to the financial research platform AlphaSense said the mention of “transfers” or similar terms in earnings announcements from US companies tripled within a year.
From Amazon to Volkswagen
These are the most popular employers among non-academics
Counterpart to “Quiet quitting”
“Quiet cutting” represents the countermovement to “Quit quitting”, a term that went viral last year: Employees limit their work to only the necessary activities and do not show any initiative beyond that – they forego overtime and availability after work or additional tasks. After years of employees having more control, at least in the USA, companies could now take more control again.
“Quiet cutting” can be very stressful for employees, even leading to depression and burnout. Experts recommend having an open conversation with your superiors and using a transfer to calmly think about your future professional future.
Sources: / /
See in the video: Employers today have to actively court the favor of employees; the profession is no longer at the top for many young people, it seems. Social psychologist Thomas Ebenfeld explains this, among other things, with the “dominance of self-realization.” He is “a little pessimistic” about the future.
Source: Stern
