The invisible resigner is more than just a passing fad. They are a critical, at-risk cohort that could be hiding within your organisation. Here’s how to get them back on track.
Forget the dramatic walkouts or the loud “I’m outta here” declarations. Today’s biggest retention risk isn’t the employee who leaves – it’s the one who stays, but has mentally resigned.
They show up. They smile. They tick boxes. But they’re gone in all the ways that count.
I call them invisible resigners, and they’re quietly draining performance, culture and leadership energy from the inside out. HR leaders know the signs: feedback loops get slower, innovation stalls, emotional labour skyrockets for managers trying to re-engage them.
But here’s the problem – they rarely show up in engagement surveys. They’ve figured out how to stay just visible enough to avoid attention.
This Isn’t Quiet Quitting. It’s something deeper.
While ‘quiet quitting’ sparked headlines in 2022, invisible resigning is a deeper behavioural shift. It’s not just about boundaries or burnout. It’s about disengagement that’s disguised as compliance. These employees do the minimum, not out of rebellion, but resignation. They’ve stopped believing that effort will make a difference.
The causes aren’t surprising: poor leadership, delayed decisions, fuzzy priorities or a sense that nothing really changes no matter how much effort they put in. It’s psychological contract erosion, and when it sets in, no amount of pizza parties or pulse surveys will fix it.
Why this should be in HR’s radar
The danger isn’t just productivity loss. It’s cultural contagion. Invisible resigners normalise mediocrity. They dilute urgency. And, worst of all, they influence high performers – who either get stuck picking up the slack or start wondering, why bother trying harder?
From a workforce planning lens, this creates misaligned headcount: you have bodies in seats, but not the capabilities you think. It distorts leadership pipeline visibility and it burns out the high-performing team members that you need most.
What HR can do to mitigate this risk
Here’s the good news: invisible resignation is reversible, but only if we treat it like the leadership and decision-making problem it really is.
Here are some quick tips to get you started:
- Reinforce manager courage. Most team leaders see the signs but don’t know how to name them. Train them to spot high-surface, low-substance performance patterns and give them playbooks, not theory, to address them.
- Make work visible. If effort isn’t tied to outcome, employees disconnect. Clear decision frameworks, sharper priorities and rapid feedback loops restore a sense of movement and agency.
- Reignite ambition. Not through career plans, but through challenge. People re-engage when their thinking is stretched and their impact is seen. Design micro-stretches that build confidence and visibility fast.
- Audit your leadership signals. Are your leaders rewarding problem-solvers or peacekeepers? Are tough calls celebrated or avoided? Culture is shaped by what leadership tolerates, especially in performance drift.
Invisible resigners aren’t lazy. They’re logical. Somewhere along the way, they lost belief that their effort mattered. But with the right leadership interventions, we can help them to feel engaged and energised once again – or at least make disengagement visible enough to act on.
This is HR’s chance to shift from retention firefighting to culture re-energising. Not by doing more, but by doing different. Because in high-performance cultures, everyone might not love their job, but no one gets to hide in it.
Book a session with Karlie Cremin to discuss this further.
Karlie Cremin is the Managing Director of Dynamic Leadership Programs Australia (DLPA) and the CEO of Crestcom Australia.
