Have you ever felt your boss isn’t listening to you on your weekly check in call?

Or perhaps you feel unclear on how to get your next promotion?

Well, a new workplace pattern is emerging: ‘quiet cracking‘.

When people regularly begin to feel unheard in meetings, or unable to influence decisions that affect their work.

The outcome can be quiet but ultimately costly: low team morale, increased turnover risk, and reduced productivity.

The cause? Systemic leadership and organizational gaps.

‘Quiet cracking’ is often a warning sign that something in the employee experience has fundamentally changed.

If leaders miss the red flags, the costs are real: talented people leave, institutional knowledge walks out the door, and the remaining team members absorb the strain.

How to support your people so they feel heard

‘Quiet cracking’ is not about employees being unwilling to work hard.

More often, it’s about feeling ill-equipped to succeed.

Training opportunities might not materialize, career progression can feel confusing, and managers – often under pressure themselves – can unintentionally stop listening to their people.

In my role, I often see businesses stuck in a pattern I call the ‘feedback paradox’.

Organizations often put a stunning amount of effort into collecting employee feedback, especially about culture and inclusion.

But when feedback doesn’t lead to visible change, it can do more harm than good. Employees may conclude that speaking up is pointless or, even worse, that leadership don’t care.

Through our DEI efforts at Thoughtworks with clients and internally, we’ve seen how this dynamic particularly affects people from under-represented groups. For those whose voices have historically been unheard, unanswered feedback can reinforce the idea that they don’t belong.

The solution isn’t just to ‘listen better’, but rather, make feedback loops genuinely responsive.

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