I was quite taken aback by a recent survey that I came across — the results of which were published in HR Canada by the excellent Todd Humber. Entitled, “More than half of companies plan to ‘quiet fire’ employees in 2025,” the survey contained US and Canadian data. It startled me to see how candidly respondents talked about their tactics and techniques to push employees to leave their organizations.

As Todd says, quiet firing “involves making workplace conditions difficult enough that employees choose to quit on their own, allowing companies to avoid severance payments and negative publicity associated with mass layoffs.”

These results were based on a survey conducted by ResumeTemplates with 1,128 business leader respondents in May 2025. It found that 53 per cent of companies are engaging in quiet firing in 2025, with 42 per cent already implementing the strategy and another 11 per cent planning to start later this year.

Is this what we have resorted to? Is this how low the bar has fallen? Is this how we uphold the mission, vision, and values of our organizations? Is this how much the mantra of “employees are our greatest asset” has been diluted to?

Peers and colleagues, please tell me that you can wake up and smell the coffee. At a time when many of us are facing skills and talent shortages, are we going to resort to quiet firing?

As HR professionals, we spend so much time, energy, and effort on onboarding employees to make them feel special, get them excited about immersing themselves in our culture, and adopt our company’s values and ways of doing things. We ask them to sign up enthusiastically for the company’s mission, support the organization’s goals and objectives, and row in the same direction.

So, what happened to all of that? Did we just throw out the baby with the bathwater??

As I continued to read Todd’s well written piece, I was appalled to see that the most popular quiet firing method was delaying promotions or raises, which is used by 47 per cent of companies. Other common tactics include enforcing stricter workplace rules or policies (46 per cent), increasing workloads without additional pay (45 per cent), and mandating more in-office days (42 per cent).

Todd goes on to say that additional strategies include reducing pay or bonuses (35 per cent), micromanaging employees (34 per cent), cutting benefits (32 per cent), and ignoring toxic workplace behaviour (22 per cent).

Other motivations include avoiding severance payouts (34 per cent), reducing legal risks (34 per cent), and avoiding bad press from formal layoffs (32 per cent).

Of all the “quiet” movements, I think this one has to be most shameful. People, we are better than this. Quiet firing does nothing to help maintain trust or elevate the reputation of the HR function. It erodes all the hard work that many of us have done over the years, especially as we stepped up during the pandemic to truly demonstrate the value that we bring to BOTH employers AND employees.

Now at a time when our team members are looking to us to help them through a stressful period, when affordability, cost of living, geo-political tensions, family obligations from elder, child, and pet care, and the rise of Return To Office (RTO) demands (not requests) are placing unbelievable pressure on them, now is when we have decided to terminate their employment through quiet firing??

Even if quiet firing only affected underperformers, we would still be missing the point of why it is a problematic way to manage the situation. High achievers and performers are watching actions closely and many will plan to quietly exit organizations.

As Todd goes on to report, the strategy (of quiet firing) comes with significant costs to employee morale. Among companies that started quiet firing in 2025, 39 per cent say that it has reduced morale significantly and 46 per cent report that it has had some negative impact.

Julia Toothacre, ResumeTemplates’ Chief Career Strategist captures it well: “From a business perspective, quiet firing can seem like an efficient way to reduce headcount without triggering layoffs, bad press, or severance costs.” She continues, “But it’s short-sighted. Creating an environment that pushes people to quit inevitably damages morale, productivity, and trust. It can also negatively impact hiring in the future.”

If, by chance, you fall into the camp of thinking that quiet firing is a great strategy, I ask you to please reconsider – not only for the benefit of your organization, but the reputation of the entire HR sector.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not about keeping underperformers employed; there are just better ways to terminate them with respect and dignity. We must keep in mind that today’s unceremoniously exited employee is tomorrow’s reputation damager. You can bet your bottom dollar that these employees will spread their bad experience through word of mouth and social media, which can significantly harm your organization’s recruiting, hiring, retaining, and engagement strategies.

Now is the time for us to step up and once again demonstrate the true value of HR. We must do what we can to rail against the misperception that we are just the mouthpiece for the workplace.