You've heard of quiet quitting. Here's how to tell if you're being quietly fired

Looking back, says MaryAnn Kerr, it was a work call at home on a day off that heralded the beginning of the end of a job. 

About five years ago, Kerr, a veteran executive in the non-profit sector, landed a sweet gig as vice-president of a charity she loved. Roughly three or four months into it, her boss was calling her at home, angry about something seemingly innocuous Kerr had said during an earlier phone meeting.

"It was over something that made no sense at all…. They thought I was overstepping, that this was not appropriate for me to say."

That began what she describes as "a campaign to undermine" her by a CEO who seemed to believe Kerr was after their job.

"I was being excluded from meetings that I needed to attend in order to effectively do my job. Information was being withheld from me that I needed to do my job," Kerr told CBC Radio's The Cost of Living. 

Much attention has been paid recently to the idea of "quiet quitting," when employees remain in their jobs but stick to the bare requirements of the role in order to avoid burnout.

A phenomenon called "quiet firing" can have the opposite effect — when employers subtly compel staff members to leave their jobs to avoid the messy business of firing them.

"I have heard the term quiet firing used in different countries or in different contexts, where … the employers make the workplace such a difficult environment that the employee feels that they have no choice but to leave," said Nita Chhinzer, associate professor of human resources at the University of Guelph's Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics. 

"So the employee may be overlooked for promotion, or their hours may be reduced, or they may suddenly no longer be scheduled." 

In Kerr's case, the boss would tell her that her colleagues didn't like her, and micromanage the way she handled her own direct reports. The boss would tell her to hold weekly meetings with her team, said Kerr, but also subvert her authority with them.

"And [the team] literally ignored my emails. They would not meet with me. So it's a combination of being isolated and mobbed, to a certain extent."

Other times, the CEO would be combative with her in front of others at meetings, said Kerr, "almost like a fighting match to kind of poke at me."

"I even had an episode at a public event where they shoved me out of the way to get to a photo opportunity."

Kerr's experience tracks with other cases like it, said Cchinzer. It's fairly common in cases like this for the boss to make the employee in question an "outgroup member."