Into Thin Air: How 'Ghosting' has moved into the Workplace

Making its way into the list of 2015's best words, 'ghosting' is often used in reference to a romantic relationship and refers to being dumped through a sudden cut-off of all communication. However, concerning new research from CV-Library suggests that this trend has in fact left the dating world and made its way into the working world.

To better understand the issue of ghosting in the workplace, the job site conducted a survey amongst over 3000 of the UK’s professionals, and the results were eye-opening; of Britain’s 31.2 million working professionals, 8.9% admitted to ghosting their employer. Suggesting that amassive 2.8 million employees have ghosted their employer and simply disappeared from work. This result should come as a warning to HR professionals; while many workers will likely have a clause in their contract which details the terms of their notice period, it seems that some employees are simply ignoring it.

There’s no denying that this behaviour is unacceptable and that employee ghosting can leave businesses in difficult situations, however, it should be acknowledged that workers don’t tend to just stop showing up to work without a reason. CV-Library asked its respondents to share their stories, in the hope that businesses take note and work to eradicate any potential issues, and can reveal that the most common reason for employees disappearing on the job was that they felt mistreated by management.