What's the bad news?

Your current role has been eliminated.

Okay, what's the good news?

You're being reassigned!

This is an example of quiet cutting, a new workplace trend that's been dominating the headlines.

We've talked about quiet quitting. Now there's a new trend: quiet cutting.

A new trend is here - quiet cutting.

Some bosses have been trying out a new technique called quiet cutting.

Quiet cutting is restructuring and reassigning the roles and responsibilities for completely different things by not giving them layoff and portraying like,

"We have something for you, we'll take care of you. Here is the job - take it or leave it!"

And that basically is avoiding layoff and certain scenario by the employer to employee.

For the past few years, we have seen quiet quitting, we've seen the great resignation.

And all of this was a sign of a strong economy, a strong labor market tight tight labor market.

Employees have had the upper hand.

Quiet cutting is a suggestion that the tables are starting to turn that employers are starting to have that upper hand now.

Quiet cutting is just a buzzword term, but reorg when a company B organizes their internal system and teams. It's not new, it's not a new concept.

And reorgs have historically either been made to benefit the company but have historically always frustrated employees.

It is being highlighted as a different aspect of the mass layoffs and changes in the fields of work that we're seeing.

This is Matt Conrad. He has been reassigned twice at IBM.

He ended up with a job he loves but the reassignment process took a toll.

Yeah, so I was actually reassigned I think twice in 366 days.

And unfortunately, I live with mental health disabilities and major depression complex, PTSD and anxiety disorder, and all three kind of kicked in simultaneously.

And I started having panic attacks on really a twice-a-day basis and ended up taking short-term disability to make sure I protected my mental health.

IBM isn't alone in having employees reassigned to new roles.

Big name companies like Adidas, Adobe and Salesforce have been enforcing large scale reassignments.

Also LinkedIn research published in May found that hiring has continued to slow in many countries, but internal mobility is trending upwards in several industries.

Some economists say that despite the overall US job market, remaining strong companies are fearful of what lies ahead, so they're resorting to the quiet cutting tactic.

You know, quiet cutting is happening because companies are fearful of what's coming down the pipe, they're fearful that the economy will go into recession,

or that they will run into economic headwinds.

And they are concerned that they're going to have to cut down the line.

And so this is a little bit of insurance for them.

The other thing it does is potentially saves employers money.

Because if you have to do a major layoff, then you have to pay severance, there's all sorts of other financial issues that come into play that will cost you money.

So this is sort of a way to have some savings and hopefully get rid of some employees.

It's really unfortunate, it does not reflect well on the companies, and it really is very harmful to employee morale.

So one of the things that typically happens during business cycles is this process that economists refer to as creative destruction.

So as we figure out what the next step is, when you see demand slowing down, what's the new product you're going to release, you want to create.

But then in order to create, you need to cut costs, and that's part of the destruction.

So really, businesses are trying to optimize for the future.

And that results in these things that we call reorganizations that are often being referred to it's quiet cutting.

Quiet cutting done right is a great way for employers to have that employee engagement, employee satisfaction.

But if the quiet cutting is done the wrong way it impacts the mental health.

It impacts the employee engagement. It impacts the reputations for employers as well.

So they really have to think through if the quiet cutting is the right approach to go by right now, or maybe layoff it is because they really have to think it off if it's the right approach.

For me, what I learned is you have to go through the process of grieving of being angry of loss, and then see what doors will open up see what windows will open up.

I never would have thought I would have ended up on this team.

I never would have thought I'd worked for a manager who really has my back and supports me.

And now both those statements are true. I love what I do and I and I love who I work for.

I would encourage all employers to consider the pros and cons and if anything else can or should be done, perhaps, you know giving an employee an option between two roles, if that's a possibility,

or even saying, "Hey, would you like a severance package of some sort? Or would you like to be reassigned?"

Just giving employees some say in the process, I think would make them feel more comfortable about the whole thing.