From ‘hushed hybrid’ to ‘quiet vacationing,’ here are the biggest workplace trends right now

Ghost jobs are roles that employers claim to be actively hiring for but which may not exist at all.

Employers may post ghost job listings to give the impression they're growing or to try to assure overworked staff that they'll get another pair of hands soon to alleviate their workloads.

Listings that have been up for a while may be ghost jobs.

"If the job has been posted for 30 days or more, that's something that you could put in the back of your mind and say, 'Well, this posting's been open for a while and they haven't hired anybody yet. Maybe they're not in a hurry to hire,'" FlexJobs' lead career expert, Toni Frana, previously told BI. "The sooner you can apply to a job in relation to when it was posted, the better."

But some employers listing ghost jobs may be collecting resumes for when they actually are hiring further down the road.

"A lot of them are getting contacted and interviewed at some point, so it's not necessarily a black box," Stacie Haller, Resume Builder's chief career advisor, previously told BI.

Workers may take so-called "quiet vacations" or "hush trips" if they want to get away without using their vacation days, or if they were denied the time off.

In an April survey of 1,170 employed American adults conducted by The Harris Poll, nearly four in 10 millennial respondents said they've taken time off from work without informing their employer, and 24% of Gen Zers and Gen Xers reported the same.

An employer's goal with quiet firing is to get employees to quit on their own so the company can avoid the bad press and severance costs associated with firings or layoffs.

Quiet firing can take many forms. It could mean everything from implementing an RTO mandate to cutting back perks or benefits or getting stingy with raises or promotions.

Employers may do "silent layoffs," as they're also known, because "their budgets are stagnant or there are performance issues and rather than addressing them, they're kind of quietly pushing the employee out the door," Vicki Salemi, career expert for Monster, previously told BI.

"Hushed hybrid" refers to a shadow policy where managers allow employees to continue working from home even though the organization wants them back in the office.

In practice, it could mean "enforcing a return to office selectively among employees, allowing flexibility on certain days, mandating on days only when someone's presence is absolutely necessary, or even misreporting attendance in some cases," HR advisor Shelley Majors previously told BI.

Employees whose managers aren't as flexible may see morale suffer or feel resentment at the uneven enforcement of RTO policies.

You probably know someone that uses a "corporate accent" — that nasally, passive aggressive, professional tone of voice used to convey confidence. They likely enunciate every, single, word, too.  

The term itself was coined by TikToker Lisa Beasley who often plays a character called "Corporate Erin" in her videos on the platform. 

Another TikToker, inspired by Beasley, explained it as a worker's "nine-to-five voice," saying "by changing the speed, rhythm, and inflection points of my speech I can convey a level of confidence where otherwise none exists." 

Younger workers have taken to criticizing the "corporate accent" as they struggle with the rules of office conversations — from knowing when to use corporate jargon to masking your true opinions to learning how to make small talk. Almost half of Gen Zers and millennials reported feeling left out at work because they struggled to keep up with workplace jargon, and adjusted the way they spoke to fit in, a LinkedIn and Duolingo survey found in 2023. 

In a TikTok video that has racked up millions of views, Rajesh describes corporate flirting as "a foolproof way to act and speak with charisma in almost every single situation, especially corporate ones."

If you want to get to know someone better at work, for example, Rajesh said to start by asking them a basic question like where they went to college. Once they answer, Rajesh said respond in way that acknowledges that you heard them and adds "some outside context," but also pokes fun at them in a nice way. 

If they said they went to Northwestern University, for example, Rajesh said to respond with "Oh so you're really smart but you like freezing to death for half the year?'" This gives them an opportunity to joke back and continue the conversation. 

And don't be surprised if you find a Gen Z worker using this hack on you as a growing number get tips from TikTok. Seventy percent of Gen Z said they turned to TikTok for advice on their careers, according to a report by Edubirdie, an essay-service platform for students, that asked 2,000 Gen Zers between the ages of 18 to 26 in the US about the influence of TikTok in their lives. 

After being passed over for a promotion, Jordan Smith — a 28-year-old working in the music industry in LA — "rage-applied" for five jobs and landed a better-paying role within a week. 

However, rage applying might not be the best approach for everyone.

Career coach Kelsey Wat advises against conducting a job search from an emotional place of "fear, resentment, or burnout." 

"I think it's helpful for job seekers to get more clarity and be more centered and grounded in what they want … so they can develop a job search strategy that is aligned with their values," she said. 

"This is a trend that's helpful for employees also," said Toni Frana, lead career expert at FlexJobs. "We know that employees like professional development opportunities … like the opportunity to upskill and increase their bandwidth and further their knowledge in terms of skills they acquire in a role." 

Wat said it's important for prospective employees to gauge an employer's willingness to provide internal growth opportunities during the job interview process.

"It's really important to ask how success is measured in a role, and when you're interviewing, asking questions about what previous people in the role are doing now so that you have a sense of whether there is mobility in the company," she said. 

Gallup's 2023 State of the Global Workplace report found that roughly 1 in 5 workers were "loud quitting" at their jobs, which just means they were "actively disengaged" at work, as opposed to quiet quitters, who were simply "not engaged."

"They're detached from the organization but also emotionally against the organization, and they'll be vocal about it," said Jim Harter, the lead author of the report and the chief scientist for Gallup's workplace management and well-being practices. "The loud-quitting employees are going to be much, much more likely to take another job pretty quickly if it becomes available, and they won't need as much money to do that."

Frana said in some cases, employees should try to raise workplace issues with their managers before dissatisfaction festers. 

"I certainly think what a lot of things boil down to is communication and having conversations with your manager about potential opportunities or shifts in the type of work that you might be doing," she said. "You can oftentimes get to the heart of a matter, and you might be able to make some direct changes." 

TikToker Marisa Jo popularized the term, which describes a way to resist the Sunday scaries and the pressure many people feel to hit the ground running full-speed when they return to work again on Monday.

"The second I got rid of the pressure and allowed myself to have whatever kind of day unfolded, I was able to do stuff," she said in a TikTok.

In a video documenting one of her Bare Minimum Mondays, Jo goes through activities like journaling, her skincare routine, and making progress on a creative project before beginning work, which she notes "doesn't start until noon" on Bare Minimum Mondays, though she notes she's able to finish all of her work in the shorter allotted time anyway.

Though it often entails breaking some rules, workers may do it without fear of repercussion because they're simply fed up with their job, their employer, or the general state of work.

Anti-work sentiments helped the trend grow over the past several months. 

A TikTok from user The Speech Prof says examples of chaotic working include giving customers employee discounts or upsizing their food order for free.

Kelsey Wat, the career coach, warns that workers engaging in the practice should be aware that they may be jeopardizing their jobs: "I would be concerned that's not going to end well."

This trend, which involves workers starting to look for other roles while still in their current ones in case they lose their jobs, is interchangeably called "career cushioning," or "recession-proofing." The term started to take off late in 2022 and has continued as many companies announced job cuts. 

"Given the fact that we've had high inflation, we're potentially moving into more of a recession, I think that if you have concerns about layoffs, or you're in an industry that is affected by layoffs, I think it's really, really healthy and a good idea to make sure that you are networking, make sure that you are prepared for anything that can happen," Wat said. "I think it's a good strategy for everybody." 

Judge, a self-proclaimed "anti-work girlboss," told BI of the trend: "I really want people to understand our time is so valuable and should be focused on efforts that are most aligned with their individual priorities, not a company."

While some girls with so-called lazy jobs say it's helped them establish better work-life balance and keep stress in check at work, experts warn it can put your job in jeopardy.

"The problem with having the lazy girl job is that they're the first ones to get laid off when tough times come," Marc Cenedella, a careers expert and founder of the job search site Ladders, said.

Cenedella added there's a risk bosses will see if you post about your lazy girl job online and take disciplinary action accordingly, and said you may also stunt your career growth and future prospects by taking it easy.

The TikTok-popular term was coined in September 2023 article for Fashion Journal titled "'Snail girl era': Why I'm slowing down and choosing to be happy rather than busy."

The article describes the snail girl ethos as follows: "A snail girl takes her time and creates to create. The speed at which everything is put out into the world is just getting faster, but she doesn't care. She's running her own race, and maybe that race isn't going anywhere but home and back to bed."

Suzy Welch, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, previously told BI that embracing the snail girl lifestyle of prioritizing happiness and self-care instead of overworking could have financial repercussions.

They're the ones who spend more time talking about their work than actually doing it — the ones who readily flaunt their achievements to their bosses or on LinkedIn but are slow to get to work.

These workers can have a negative effect on morale.

"Some people are motivated by external rewards and recognition rather than the inherent satisfaction of the work itself," Nicole Price, a leadership coach and workplace expert, told CNBC. "This can lead to a focus on visibility and self-promotion in order to attract these rewards." 

"The constant self-promotion may create an atmosphere of competition rather than collaboration," Price told CNBC. 

Thousands of screenwriters from the Writers Guild of America and actors from the SAG-AFTRA were on a historic strike. The last time the two were on strike together was in 1960.

More than 11,000 Los Angeles city workers went on a 1-day strike last summer. LA also saw thousands of hotel workers go on strike.

And the UPS and the Teamsters union, which represents roughly 340,000 UPS package handlers and drivers, reached a tentative agreement, averting a strike that could have had far-reaching repercussions.