Why Some Employees Quietly Just Vanish Without Quitting — 'No Email, No Slack, Just ... Gone'
The silent resignation speaks volumes about modern work anxiety.
carey1216 | Canva I’d like to say I saw it coming. But I didn’t. Jamie had been with me for a while, a team player, steady, dependable, and seemingly happy. One day, he was sipping coffee in the break room, laughing at someone’s story. The next, he was gone. No message. No handover. Just an empty chair and silence so thick it echoed.
At first, I assumed it was me. Had I pushed too hard? Missed something? Was the culture more strained than I realized? It felt personal, that it must be something I was responsible for.
Colleagues told me not to worry about it, shrugged their shoulders, and called them flaky, unprofessional, or immature. The words were a temporary salve but didn’t go anywhere near the cause.
Someone disappearing didn’t happen often. But it happened enough. Enough that I pulled myself together, stopped blaming myself, and started asking why.
Eventually, I came to understand that when someone quietly vanishes from work without a word, it isn’t always about the company or the way they were managed.
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Sometimes, it’s about fear and a psychological escape route.
Ghosting in the workplace
Ghosting has always existed in the workplace. When I got over the “it must be me” syndrome, I talked to other business owners I knew and discovered that they all had been hit by people who disappeared without warning.
But in recent years, it has increased dramatically, and not just with the already employed people disappearing, but throughout the recruitment process as well. Some people accept a job, only to go off the grid. Others stay enthusiastic, but don’t show up on the day.
I had one guy who started brilliantly and disappeared at lunchtime. Though in fairness, he did email to say a different offer he wanted more had just come through.
The figures for ghosting during recruitment are now so high that a recent survey found that 41% of Gen Z job seekers have ghosted a potential employer during some stage of the recruitment process, and a staggering 34% have accepted, but not appeared on their first day of work.
But it is worse still when the ghost is an established member of the team, leaving a trail of depression and disruption for management and co-workers alike.
All that work. The planning. The hours. And in the end, nothing to show but an empty chair.
Angry Reactions
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The furious criticism, the descriptions of the disappeared as “entitled”, having “no work ethic” or just being downright “rude” are an understandable reaction.
But the truth beneath the anger? Rejection. Doubt. The sting of being left without warning.
Ghosting leaves managers haunted by what they didn’t see coming. And as is so often the case when a relationship breaks down, we look inward at the hurt, instead of questioning the why of the other person’s behavior.
When the ghost talks to others about what they have done, they may cite a toxic culture. No growth. Burnout. Poor mental health. All good reasons to leave a job.
But the reasons that rarely explain an immediate and total vanishing act. The truth lies elsewhere.
The drivers behind an abrupt and unforeseen departure invariably lie with the person ghosting. These may include:
- The prospect of what to someone else might be a non-event, friction with a colleague, perhaps, but that they fear will lead to a confrontation they don’t believe they can handle. They would far rather run.
- Something in the way they were raised has convinced them that problems can’t be fixed, but only run from. Perhaps they were bullied and it was never stopped, producing a belief so ingrained it remains throughout their career.
- Being easily triggered by shame. You think they’re doing fine. They think they’re failing. Every compliment you give them feels like pity. Eventually, they stop showing up because they can’t bear the thought of being exposed.
- Being devoid of the skills to deal with conflict. While they drift through life appearing sunny and happy, getting on with everyone, it is a paper-thin disguise for how they feel constantly threatened by the chaos of other people’s emotions.
- One simple reason is that they may have meant to have that difficult conversation about leaving for weeks, perhaps for purely personal reasons. But rather than face it, they have left it too late, and the terror boils over, and they run. Literally.
There may be all sorts of things going on at home that you haven’t picked up on, relationship problems, for example, that they have barely admitted to themselves, but are causing transference issues. And you never saw it coming.
Prevention and response to vanishing employees
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Even when you realize it was never about you, it won’t help the practical issues, the cover of the work, the psychology of the team, or the shaken confidence of any middle managers.
While you certainly cannot start throwing out your theories on the ghost’s psychological shortcomings to the team, you can underline the importance to them of not taking it personally.
Looking forward, while it may not be about you, as leaders, we can still take steps to lessen its repetition.
- Build a culture where speaking up is the norm, not a risk. This will also encourage innovation, enable personal development, and allow hidden talent to shine.
- De-stigmatize struggle. One leader I know encouraged everyone to share both what they achieved the day before and the biggest lesson they learned. In talking about what they learned, people became comfortable admitting what they didn’t know or struggled with. This quickly develops into an ability to ask for help.
- Be an aware leader. Actively and continually look out for warning signs, be they a degree of disengagement, quieter behavior, more frenetically pleasing behavior, or any degree of withdrawal.
The more interaction you have with your team, the less likely you are to be caught completely unaware by ghosting.
Ghosting will still happen. You can’t stem the tide of a growing phenomenon. There will always be the odd Jamie, the odd sad and empty chair.
You can’t prevent every ghost. But you can build the kind of workplace where they don’t feel they need to flee.
Jan is a writer and published author who spent many years building businesses. She writes about entrepreneurship, psychology, and culture and has contributed to a wide variety of business publications for many years.
