Will this be another trend that crosses the Atlantic and hits European shores? “Revenge quitting” comes from the United States and has become common enough to be taken seriously as part of the cultural discussion on the workplace: sometimes individual frustration, heated up by the growing expectations of companies, can spark into a noisy form of exit.

Taking it elsewhere than on the chin

Unlike “quiet quitting,” i.e. when employees are content to do the bare minimum at work, here you don’t drag your feet: you take to your heels. The concept refers to an employee’s decision to give up their job noisily and often abruptly, the idea being to send a message to their employer.

According to the first surveys on the subject in the United States, revenge quitting is motivated by a profound sense of injustice, a lack of recognition (real or perceived) or a work environment deemed toxic. It is usually accompanied by a public response, such as criticism relayed on social networks. But the “revenge” can take other forms too, from deleting company data to secretly changing the passwords to software or social networks.

Right to criticism

On the question of denigrating one’s employer, “employees may in principle express their opinions openly in any place and by any means they see fit,” explains employment law lawyer . “They have a right to criticise their employer, limited only by justifications linked to their position and to potential abuses, such as defamatory or threatening comments.”

“Despite the recognition of this right,” Castegnaro continues, “practical difficulties are becoming increasingly apparent with the rise of new technologies and social networks such as Facebook and WhatsApp, which make it easier to disseminate opinions. The right to criticise does not--as the Luxembourg courts have ruled--allow an employee to make disrespectful or insulting comments to the employer or to other employees.”

“But,” he clarifies, “an employee is in principle entitled to criticise their employer’s management policy or even internal organisation, both internally and externally, without fear of reprisals from the employer, provided that their comments are not disparaging and prejudicial to the employer.”

Loyalty

As for deleted data and sabotaged passwords, says Castegnaro, every employee has an “obligation of loyalty” to their employer. Such actions therefore “may constitute serious misconduct that will allow the employer to terminate the employment contract with immediate effect, [even] if the employee is still in the notice period for redundancy or resignation.”

For revenge quitters who have, of course, already quit, “the employer will be able to take the employee to court for any damage caused by the employee’s improper handling of personal data,” says the lawyer. “However, it is rare these days for an employer to be unable to recover deleted data or access to an employee’s professional files, so the damage is in principle limited.”

In Luxembourg, of the employees who are dissatisfied with their situation in a company, nearly one in three (30%) would not rule out the idea of resigning, according to a Statec analysis last spring. According to the same report, 12% of all employees in the country would be prepared to take the plunge. How many of these are also interested in taking “revenge”?

This article in French.