Employers are often reluctant to fire workers. They need to offer severance packages and risk having the employee accuse the company of discrimination or prejudice for letting them go. It’s among the worst, most uncomfortable tasks for a human resources professional or manager. Supervisors may want to avoid conflict with employees. Nudging them to leave of their own volition can be a way for companies to manage their workforce and reduce costs.
In behavioral economics, a “nudge” is a gentle prompt that influences people’s behavior. It refers to how HR and business leaders can use gentle cues to encourage employees to behave in a specific manner—like investing in their pension, exceeding deadlines, participating in feedback surveys, or pushing a worker out the door.
How It Works
Quiet firing is a form of passive-aggressive workplace bullying, in which a company makes an employee’s life so difficult that the employee eventually quits. This can be done by giving the employee negative feedback, denying them opportunities for advancement or making their work meaningless.
Organizations can make it difficult for workers to stay by giving them unrealistic deadlines, excessive workloads or challenging tasks. They may also create a hostile work environment or isolate workers from their colleagues.
They might change the terms of employment to make the job less attractive to workers or offer buyouts to workers willing to leave voluntarily. This may include reducing pay, benefits or job security. An employer might pressure workers to retire early. This may be done by offering financial incentives or making the work environment less attractive to older workers.
According to the Harvard Business Review, AI can predict which employees will quit. Indicators include setting inconsistent goals or expectations, having too many process constraints, putting people in the wrong roles, assigning tedious or overly easy tasks and failing to create a psychologically safe culture.
Top-tier investment bank Goldman Sachs allegedly planned to nudge out 800 white-collar professionals earlier this year by slashing their bonuses—which comprises a large portion of their total compensation—after having previously laid off more than 3,000 employees due to the slowdown in mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings and the bank’s foray into retail consumer financial products.
During the height of tech layoffs, Google CEO Sundar Pichai urged his team members to step up their productivity in an all-hands meeting. He advised them that the halcyon days of plenty were over. The tech giant—and its industry peers—found itself in a new hostile environment that caused the sector to aggressively cut costs and find ways to work more efficiently with fewer workers.
Before Alphabet, the parent company of Google, initiated layoffs, it reportedly launched a ranking system and performance improvement plan—Googler Reviews and Development (GRAD)—that was suspected to ease out 10,000 employees. There was an overarching worry that if employees were rated as poor performers, they could be shown the door.
Workers were left with a quandary: is it better to voluntarily leave or be let go and have to tell every interviewer in the future that you were laid off from Google, and they may draw some negative conclusions from it?
Back To The Office
When businesses order people to return to the office, it’s not just a Boomer boss exerting control to micromanage employees and look over their shoulders as they work. The return-to-work mandate is also a tool to cause attrition.
For those who strongly want to remain working remotely, being told to commute several hours round-trip to the office and back home is unacceptable. Losing your work-life balance and disrupting the flow of the last three years is an affront to loyal employees.
What To Do If You Feel Like You’re Being Nudged Out
If you believe you are being nudged to leave your job, it is essential to document everything. This includes keeping track of any negative feedback you receive, your emails and conversations with your manager.
You can talk to your boss about the situation if you are comfortable. Explain that you feel pressured to leave and would like to stay with the company.
If you cannot resolve the situation with your manager, you may want to start looking for a new job. It is important to remember that you have rights as a worker. If you are being nudged to leave your job, you do not have to accept it. You have options, and you should not be afraid to exercise them.
Source: Forbes
