When colleagues vanish without explanation, staff learn silence is safer, and psychological safety erodes across the whole workforce
Employees are using a chilling new phrase, "getting disappeared", to describe what happens to colleagues who raise concerns or become inconvenient. They vanish from the workplace without explanation. Culture experts warn the trend is now a governance risk that boards cannot leave to HR alone.
Carole Cooper is a former chief people officer and founder of Carole Cooper Consulting. She first heard the term during a cultural review of a Queensland organisation where staff turnover was running at between 65 and 68 per cent. Staff told her that colleagues they regarded as skilled and competent were there one day and gone the next. There was no announcement, and leaders would say only that they could not discuss it.
"It's not just one workplace – I'm hearing this term surface in conversations right across the country at the moment," Cooper said.
Since then, she has heard a friend at an unrelated organisation use the same word without prompting.
What "getting disappeared" means for the people left behind
Cooper said that from the organisation's perspective, a silent exit can look like a solved problem. For the colleagues who remain, it creates fear, uncertainty and anxiety. In her culture reviews, she tracks what follows: absenteeism rises, and so do workers' compensation and psychosocial claims.
"If people see that the person who speaks up gets 'disappeared,' they learn very quickly that silence is safer. And once silence and fear becomes the culture, you have a much bigger problem than an HR policy can solve – it becomes a psychosocial safety and governance issue," she said.
Dr Amantha Imber, organisational psychologist and CEO of behaviour change training firm Inventium, said the reaction is hardwired.
"Our brains hate uncertainty, often more than bad news. When a colleague vanishes overnight, suddenly and with no explanation, everyone left behind is left wondering, 'Am I next? What did they do wrong? What's safe to say in the next team meeting?'" she said.
"Stress narrows our thinking, so people get less creative and make worse decisions. And the most sensible response is to stop talking or voicing concerns, because our brains tell us it is not safe to speak up."
Psychosocial safety rules raise the stakes
Psychosocial hazards are aspects of work design, management or workplace relationships that can cause psychological or physical harm. Regulators are paying closer attention to them.
The cost of getting it wrong is climbing. Safe Work Australia's Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025 report found mental health conditions made up 12 per cent of all serious claims, up 14.7 per cent on 2022–23 and 161 per cent on a decade earlier. In 2022–23, those claims carried a median of 35.7 working weeks lost and median compensation of A$67,400. HRD has previously examined why younger employees are reporting more workplace stress.
The issue extends well beyond Australia. ISO 45003, published in June 2021 as the first international standard on managing psychosocial risk at work, lists organisational change management, job security and team culture among the factors that can harm workers' mental health.
Cooper noted a complication. Organisations that pay departing staff more than the legal minimum and have them sign a deed may head off individual claims. That does nothing for the colleagues watching.
Every exit sends a message
Imber said most companies obsess over onboarding and treat exits as an afterthought.
"Research on 'organisational justice' suggests that people can accept a bad outcome (like losing their job) so long as they believe the process was fair. Fairness matters especially when the news is bad," she said.
"In the case of retrenchments or people being fired, how fairly departing colleagues are treated predicts how committed the survivors remain. Every exit sends a message to everyone still left."
Her prescription is simple: "Give people a real reason. Give notice where you can. Tell the team something, even if it's brief. Let people say goodbye. And check that the decision would hold up if a fair-minded outsider asked 'why?'"
She warned that low psychological safety produces a more transactional workforce, one that trusts employers less and escalates disputes externally. That pattern echoes a report finding employees feel less psychologically safe than executives.
"Plenty of organisations are spending good money on 'speak up' campaigns. You can't run a speak-up poster campaign and a disappearing act at the same time. People will believe what they see," Imber said.
Cooper's advice centres on process. "My one rule is that people need to be treated with dignity and respect," she said. "So even if you don't have to consult with them from a legal perspective, still give them the dignity of consulting with them."
She recommends acknowledging a departing employee's contribution while protecting their privacy. That can include offering a farewell morning tea, which the person can decline. HR leaders looking at the wider culture can also revisit how to encourage staff to speak up without fear of retribution.
For boards, she said, the harder task is looking past the metrics. "Boards look at turnover figures, engagement scores, exit interviews and complaints because those are the things that get reported to them. The question I want boards to ask is: what are our people afraid to tell us?"
"If somebody raises an uncomfortable issue, what do you do? Do you listen? Do you investigate it? Or do you start asking whether they're a cultural fit?"
