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Ghost jobs. Coffee badging. Quiet firing. Quiet vacationing.
The buzziest workplace trends this year didn't just become well-known tropes but also highlighted an ongoing power struggle between workers and bosses after the pandemic shook up the way people do their jobs.
The year's biggest movements reflect "shifts in work models, technological integration, and employee expectations," says Lauren Winans, CEO and HR consultant at Next Level Benefits.
While some of these are by no means new fads, they all featured prominently in the discourse around work this year. Here are the trends that dominated the cultural conversation in 2024:
Ghost jobs are nothing new but got a lot of attention this year.
These are roles which employers claim to be looking to fill even though they may not actually be hiring for such positions.
Employers may list ghost jobs for a few reasons. They might want to suggest they're doing well and growing; they could be trying to ready a talent pool for actual positions opening in the future; or they may want to imply to overworked employees that they'll get some additional help soon.
This one pretty much explains itself, but just in case: When employees go on vacation without using any time off or telling their bosses, they're said to be quiet vacationing.
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Return-to-office mandates continued rolling out at big firms this year. Amazon, one of the country's biggest employers, became one of the highest-profile companies to announce a full 5-day-a-week return to the office. (Its implementation has been delayed for some employees though, due to a lack of space.)
As employers tightened the reins on remote work, some employees started carving out a new working arrangement under the table.
Enter the hushed hybrid schedule, in which employees skirt RTO mandates by getting their manager's approval to continue working from home on days they're technically required to be in the office.
Managers, for their part, might agree to do this to keep their employees happy (or to keep them, period). They also probably have a more personal connection with the workers affected by a mandate than the executives enforcing it. And of course, managers who are themselves opposed to RTO plans might also cut employees some slack out of sympathy.
Another method of evading RTO is coffee badging — though it still technically requires that an employee return to the office.
The practice involves going to work to swipe your badge so your attendance is logged. But instead of spending the rest of the workday there, you kill some time by grabbing a coffee, or showing face with a quick lap around the office, before returning home to do most of your actual work there.
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Performance improvement plans, or PIPs, usually consist of a series of goals set for an employee to improve in areas where a boss says they're underperforming. If they're not completed in the allotted time, usually a few months or less, the employee will face termination.
PIPs are certainly not unique this year but statistically have been more frequently issued in recent years. They got renewed attention in 2024 as part of the discussion around ways employers trim headcount unannounced.
Yes, these are all somehow different things.
Between RTO mandates and PIPs, "quiet firing," which gained a lot of buzz in recent years, stayed in the spotlight in 2024. It refers to a boss or employer's unspoken attempt to encourage employees to quit by making the role more uncomfortable, as opposed to facing the monetary and reputational costs associated with explicitly laying them off.
Related phrases include "silent layoffs," which refers to giving employees severance packages but asking them to be discreet about their exiting the firm.
There's also "stealth sackings," coined by the Financial Times to describe firing employees over minor offenses. The newspaper cited Meta's dismissal of two dozen staff for using $25 GrubHub meal credits to buy non-food items as an example, and EY's firing of dozens of staffers for watching multiple online training courses simultaneously.
There were also other trends that, though they lack flashy names, also shaped how we worked in 2024.
The main one, of course, was the growing adoption of AI in the workplace, the "standout trend" of the year, according to Amy Schabacker Dufrane, CEO of the Human Resource Certification Institute and the Human Resource Standards Institute.
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Winans says other trends included an emphasis on upskilling and reskilling to keep up with technological advancements and changing job requirements, as well as increased labor organizing efforts.
Next year, the integration of AI at work will no doubt continue.
"Employees expect training and transparency about AI's role, while employers navigate concerns about job security and ethics," says Dufrane.
Other themes to watch include an emphasis on skills-based hiring and employee wellness programs, as well as ongoing changes to companies' ESG and DEI strategies.
Employee engagement in the US hitting an 11-year low in 2024, coupled with the possibility it may be easier to change jobs in 2025 mean that revenge quitting may also be the next big thing in workplace trends come next year, according to a Glassdoor report.
The phrase refers to dissatisfied employees being vocal with their discontent and resigning, often with little or no notice, knowing it could negatively impact their employer.
Heading into 2025, "monitoring employee satisfaction will be more important than ever," says Dufrane.
"We may see an increase in trends like bare-minimum attendance or revenge quitting as return-to-work mandates require employees to be on-site more than the post-COVID norm," she adds. "Prioritizing open communication, as well as autonomy, fairness, and a high-trust environment, will be critical for organizations to succeed."
