Most employers know their organizations can’t succeed unless they can attract and retain good people.
It’s also true, however, that sometimes they would like at least some employees to quit, and not just the underperformers whom they’d otherwise like to fire.
But rather than just wishing and praying that you’ll choose to leave, some employers will create conditions — perfectly legal ones, it turns out — that make you want to leave.
When employers might welcome your leaving
There are many reasons why an employer might push people to quit.
One may be that the company’s leaders determine that operating expenses are too high from overhiring, said Jesse Meschuk, a human resources consultant and former senior vice president of HR at a Fortune 500 company.
Or it could be that a product line is no longer popular and they don’t see an obvious way to redeploy talent. Or that AI is reducing how many employees are needed.
Whatever the reason, employees who voluntarily quit can save the company time and money not having to fire them or lay them off and pay for severance, continued benefits and outplacement assistance — which, while usually not legally required, is standard practice at many organizations.
Here’s a look at some of the ways employers may get the ball rolling.
Everyone back to the office … all the time
Deep-sixing hybrid and remote work policies in favor of a five-days-a-week-in-office mandate is often perceived — rightly or wrongly — as an aggressive move by employers to thin the herd and cut costs.
They’re unlikely to be as explicit in that desire as the two people who will be in charge of recommending cost cuts at the federal level when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House in January.
“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome,” wrote Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Trump has named co-heads of a new Department of Government Efficiency, in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.
But even when employers may genuinely have other aims for recalling people to the office full-time, they still know to plan for departures. “Most companies are … aware there will be attrition,” Meschuk said.
Making work untenable
Employers — or, more specifically, direct-line managers and department heads — may create conditions that make it harder for you to do — or like — your job. Or feel like you belong.
This could include icing you out by drastically reducing your workload and not including you on key projects, Meschuk noted.
It could mean your manager gives you the message that perhaps the job you have isn’t necessarily the best fit for you.
Or you could get micromanaged to death. “It happens to a lot of people. You quit because you don’t want to have a termination on your record,” said Joy Webb, a managing partner at Merritt Webb and a LegalShield attorney in North Carolina.
It could mean suddenly giving you a poor performance review with no raise or bonus. Or giving the promotion you’ve been wanting to a subordinate. Or putting you on a PIP (performance improvement plan) with no real intention to help you improve.
“The manager doesn’t like someone, doesn’t like the way they do things, or whatever. Instead of doing the hard work to get along or change the employee, they put them on a PIP. That gives [the employee] a black mark and often causes them to leave,” said Chris Williams, former vice president of human resources at Microsoft who is now a leadership consultant to C-suite executives.
Unintended consequences
Meschuk noted that he would not recommend any of these strategies, not just because leaders are not being upfront with individuals and are placing them in a terrible position — but because the employer may undercut itself in the process.
“Be careful what culture you’re creating. You want to be a place where high performers like to stay. You’re not just sending a signal to those you want to move out but to all employees at the company,” he said.
A far better approach if financially feasible, Meschuk added, might be to have a standing voluntary termination package that is less generous than one offered during layoffs but which any employee can take if they decide (or their manager suggests) the job isn’t working out.
While that will cost the company some money, it may be less than the cost of intentionally creating conditions designed to make someone want to leave.
Indeed, Williams said, “the people who leave first are the best people. The people who are first to say, ‘I’m not coming into the office five days a week’ are the people who can say that. They are the stars, the very highest performers. Because they have options.”
And it gets worse from there, Williams said. “Because this kind of attrition is not carefully calculated to ensure the right people leave, that their work is backfilled, it’s a mess. People run around in panic mode because there was no plan, and people are leaving left and right.”
As for the potential savings that may be achieved when strategies to push people out succeed, it may be a Pyrrhic victory, he suggested. “This is economically specious. Sure, you save in the first wave. But, beyond that, when your organization is in chaos, all the stars have left, and no one wants to work there, you lose.”
What to do if you’re feeling pushed out
As disrespectful and unfair as they seem, strategies to push you out in most instances are perfectly legal if you’re an at-will employee and are not under contract or do not have some other legal protection.
At-will employment basically means your company can let you go for any reason or no reason, unless you can show that your employer intended to push you out because of your age, gender, race, national origin or other protected class status or because you engaged in protected activity. It’s worth checking, too, if the employment laws in your state impose any other restrictions on the employer.
But, barring violation of such legal constraints, “There is no illegal way to tell someone you don’t want them anymore, because it’s employment at will. … Poor management is not illegal,” said Brian Heller, an employee-side attorney and partner at Schwartz Perry & Heller in New York.
The only leverage you have in this kind of situation is not to quit, since quitting is what your employer wants, Heller noted. But if you stay, he added, and you want a shot at keeping your job, “The best thing you can do is to work even harder and make your efforts visible. … Prove why you’re good and why it’s hard to justify letting you go.”
But if and when you decide to look for another job, be very careful not to badmouth your employer on social media, since any prospective new employer will likely scan your social accounts as part of their background check, Webb said.
