You’ve Heard of Quiet Quitting. Now Companies Are Quiet Cutting
听说过“安静辞职”？你可知道如何应对“安静裁员”？
Layoffs are down, but employers are still finding ways to cut jobs
尽管近几个月公司裁员的情况有所减少，但雇主们仍有办法削减岗位。
By Ray A. Smith
雷·A·史密斯
Workers are waking up to emails and team-meeting requests with a jarring message: They aren’t fired, but their jobs are gone.
一觉醒来，员工们收到了包含一条惊人消息的电子邮件和团队会议请求：他们没有被解雇，但他们原来的岗位没了。
People on the receiving end of these memos describe running through a range of emotions, from relief that they’re still employed to a sense of dread that their bosses secretly want them to leave. They are also facing a labor market that isn’t as robust as a year ago, leaving many to believe that the best option is to stay put and hunt internally for a better fit.
收到此类消息的人心情犹如坐过山车，从一开始因为饭碗还在而松一口气，再到开始揣测老板是不是暗中希望他们走人而感到恐惧。现在，他们所面对的就业市场也不如一年前那么强劲，很多人因此认为，最好的选择就是先留下来，然后在内部寻找更合适的岗位。
Adidas, Adobe, IBM and Salesforce, among others, have reassigned employees as part of corporate restructurings. Mentions of reassignment, or similar terms, during company earnings calls more than tripled between last August and this month, according to data from AlphaSense, a financial-research platform.
阿迪达斯、Adobe、IBM和Salesforce等公司都在企业重组中对员工进行了重新分配。金融研究平台AlphaSense的数据显示，从去年8月到今年8月，公司财报电话会议中提及重新分配或类似措辞的数量增加了两倍多。
“Reassigning is definitely a huge part of the dynamic right now,” said Andy Challenger, senior vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm.
职业介绍公司Challenger, Gray & Christmas高级副总裁安迪·查林杰（Andy Challenger）说：“重新分配无疑是目前的一个大趋势。”
For companies that spent several years – and significant money – to hire top talent, reassigning workers to new roles can be a way to fill jobs vital to future plans while trimming costs associated with old strategies, say human-resources executives.
人力资源高管们表示，对于那些花费数年时间和大量资金招聘顶尖人才的公司来说，将员工重新分配到新的岗位不仅可以填补对未来计划至关重要的职位，同时也可以削减旧战略造成的成本。
It can also be a waiting game. Employees to whom it would be costly to pay severance or months of unemployment benefits might decide to leave on their own if they feel stuck in a job they don’t want, executive coaches say.
这也可能是一种拖延战术。高管培训师说，有些员工一旦被裁，企业需要支付一大笔遣散费或数月的失业津贴，这些员工如果觉得自己被困在一份并不合适的工作上，他们可能会自行决定离开。
U.S.-based companies announced 42% fewer job cuts in July than they did in June, Challenger said. July job cuts were also 8% lower than the prior-year period, marking the first time this year that monthly job cuts were lower than in 2022.
查林杰称，总部设在美国的公司7月份宣布的裁员数量比6月份减少42%。7月份的裁员数量也比去年同期减少8%，这是今年月度裁员数首次低于2022年的水平。
In interviews and online forums, many workers said they worried whether their reassignment meant they would eventually be pushed out the door. They also wondered how to work their way out of job purgatory and back into a position they actually want.
许多员工在线上论坛和接受采访时表示，他们担心重新分配是否意味着最终会被赶出公司。他们也想知道如何走出这一工作困境，重新回到他们心仪的岗位上。
“I got the sense that it was like: ‘We appreciate everything you did so we didn’t lay you off, so you can either make the best of this or go find another job somewhere else,’” said Matt Conrad, a 34-year-old senior sales-enablement specialist at IBM who went through two reassignments in two years before landing his current role last fall.
34岁的马特·康拉德（Matt Conrad）现在是IBM的一名高级销售支持专员。在于去年秋天获得目前这个职位前，他两年内经历了两次转岗，他说，“那种感觉好像是‘我们感谢你为公司所做的一切，所以没有裁你，因此你要么好好利用这次机会积极配合转岗，要么另谋高就。’”
In Conrad’s first reassignment in 2021, a manager scheduled a call to notify him that his manager role was eliminated. He was given a new job selling software he had no experience with, a move he said took a toll on his mental health.
康拉德在2021年第一次被转岗，当时有位经理安排了一通电话通知他原本的经理岗位被取消了。康拉德被转岗到一个他毫无经验的新的软件销售岗上，他说这次转岗损害了他的心理健康。
Later that year, Conrad found a new job at IBM through a former manager that was better suited to his skill set. Then, in January 2022, that team was eliminated and he was reassigned again. Conrad asked the HR department to help him to find his remote, senior sales-coach role, a process that took six months.
同年晚些时候，康拉德通过之前的一位经理在IBM找到了一份更适合发挥他技能的新岗位。然而，2022年1月，该团队被解散，他再次被重新分配。康拉德请人力资源部门帮他找到了远程高级销售培训师的岗位，整个过程花了他六个月的时间。
Not quitting when he was reassigned was a matter of principle, he said: “I wouldn’t give in because I was a top performer and it just wasn’t fair.”
康拉德在被转岗时坚持了不辞职的原则，他说：“我不会轻言放弃，因为我是名出色的员工，这不公平。”
IBM didn’t respond to requests for comment.
IBM没有回应置评请求。
Getting caught up in a reorganisation can create anxiety for workers, but it’s sometimes a genuine move on the company’s part to avoid letting people go, said Roberta Matuson, an executive coach and adviser to businesses including General Motors and Microsoft on human-resources issues.
高管培训师、通用汽车（General Motors）和微软（Microsoft）等企业的人力资源事务顾问罗伯塔·马图松（Roberta Matuson）说，卷入重组可能会让员工感到焦虑，但有时这也是公司避免让员工离开的真实举措。
“They’re basically signalling to you: ‘Look, this is the only way for me to have a job here for you, I need to reassign you, so wink, wink, if I were you, I would take the assignment,’” she said.
她说：“他们基本上是在向你发出信号： ‘看，这是我为保住你在公司工作的唯一办法，我需要派你去别的岗位，所以如果我是你，就会接受这次转岗’。”
Other times, workers are purposefully pushed into jobs management knows they will be miserable in, prompting them to quit.
还有一些时候，员工会被故意转到管理层明知他们会感到很痛苦的岗位上，进而逼走他们。
“They could be putting you out to pasture,” Matuson said.
马图松说：“他们可能会把你赶出公司。”
Signals to look for include reassignment to a job that is far below the pay or skill level you currently have, Matuson said. Other warning signs: Being offered a role that requires relocating when your boss knows moving isn’t a viable option for you, or being reassigned to a division that’s rumoured to be on the chopping block.
马图松说，需要注意的信号有，比如把你转岗到远低于你目前的薪资或技能水平的岗位上。其他警示信号有：老板明知搬家对你来说不是一个可行选择时，却提供了一个需要搬家的岗位，或者把你转到一个据说要被裁撤的部门。
Employees suspicious or nervous about a reassignment should ask their managers why, specifically, it’s happening and what the reassignment means for their career path, said Naomi Sutherland, a global lead of talent development with Korn Ferry, a consulting firm. The answers could reveal whether a job transfer is personal.
咨询公司Korn Ferry的全球人才发展主管纳奥米·萨瑟兰（Naomi Sutherland）说，对转岗心存疑虑或紧张的员工应该询问他们的经理为什么会发生转岗，以及转岗对他们的职业道路意味着什么。得到的答案可以揭示转岗是否是针对个人的行为。
Without good information, “people are going to fill a void of information with whatever story they’re going to tell themselves,” she said.
如果信息不足，“人们就会用他们想要告诉自己的故事来填补信息空白，”她说。
Most of the time, there is little legal recourse for workers if their company reassigns them, employment lawyers say.
就业律师说，大多数情况下，如果公司重新分配员工，员工几乎没有法律追索权。
One exception is when a worker can demonstrate the reassignment was retaliatory, said Angela L. Walker, an employment attorney with Blanchard & Walker in Ann Arbor, Mich. The bar is high, she added. The employee would have to show prior evidence of discriminatory treatment or that they were unfairly singled out.
位于密歇根州安娜堡的Blanchard & Walker的就业律师安吉拉·沃克尔（Angela L. Walker）说，一种情况例外，那就是员工可以证明重新分配是报复性的。她补充说，这个门槛很高。员工必须提供先前受到歧视待遇的证据，或者证明受到了不公对待。
“I’ve seen lots of examples in my practice where employees are told they’re being let go in a ‘restructuring’ and it turns out that they’re the only one affected, or they’re the only one affected in their group,” Walker said.
沃克尔说：“在我的执业过程中见过很多这样的例子，员工被告知他们将在‘重组’中被解雇，结果是他们是唯一受影响的人，又或者他们是团队中唯一受影响的人。”
Grant Gurewitz, 32, said it took time to adjust to a new role in Seattle earlier this year when his software company eliminated his position as head of growth marketing for employee experience in North America. He was given 24 hours to make a choice between two other jobs, or leave. He picked a global head of growth marketing role that came with more responsibilities but without a pay increase.
32岁的格兰特·古雷维茨（Grant Gurewitz）说，今年早些时候，他所在的软件公司取消了他北美地区员工体验增长营销主管的职位，他需要时间来适应西雅图的新角色。当时公司给了他24个小时在另外两个岗位中做选择，否则就离开。最终他选择了全球增长营销主管这个岗位，这份工作的责任更大，但并没有加薪。
He chose to look on the bright side, because a global role probably would’ve been the next position he wanted and it builds on his existing skill set.
他选择往好的方面看，因为一个全球性的职位很可能就是他心仪的下一个职位，而且又是建立在他现有技能基础之上。
“There’s still a lot of runway for me to learn and grow and develop in this role, which is the glass-half-full approach to all of this that’s happened,” he said.
他说：“在这个职位上，我还有很多学习、成长和发展的空间，这是面对所发生的一切的乐观态度。”
