Photo: RetailWire
Is ‘quiet hiring’ the next big thing in labor?
Will “quiet hiring” become the next big trend affecting labor just as the “great resignation” and “quiet quitting” did before it?
The practice, defined as when an organization acquires new skills without actually hiring new full-time employees, may involve taking on short-term contractors or encouraging current employees to temporarily assume different tasks or new roles.
“The reality for the next year is — whether or not we go into a recession — everyone’s a little nervous,” Emily Rose McRae, who leads the future of work and talent analytics research teams in Gartner’s HR Practice, told CNBC. “In a lot of cases, organizations are not necessarily doing a hiring freeze, or layoffs, but maybe slowing down a little bit on their hiring.”
In an article for Inc., columnist Kelly Main writes that quiet hiring can be an effective way to mitigate quiet quitting, or when employees do the minimum requirements of their job in order to support work/life balance.
Employers can save significant money with little cost involved by recruiting and training internally and steering the best candidates into open positions. She writes, “The strategy of quiet hiring may sound like it’s designed to help employers, but it’s equally advantageous for employees who are eager to advance their careers and earn more money.”
Ms. McRae said transparency is key, with some employees possibly viewing the changes as a critique on their existing job performance rather than steps to avoid worse hardship. She also agreed employees can use it to their advantage to secure promotions.
Some on social media responding to the CNBC article weren’t seeing the benefits to employees.
One wrote on Twitter, “See they call it ‘quiet’ hiring because there’s no actual hiring. They just press people to take on more work without commensurate increases in compensation.”
Another wrote “‘Quiet hiring’ is the exciting new trend where your job expects you to do even MORE stuff, including things that are way outside your job description. Because it’s cheaper for THEM than hiring a skilled worker, and YOU don’t want to get fired, right.”
- ‘Quiet hiring’ will dominate the U.S. in 2023, says HR expert — and you need to prepare for it – CNBC
- Google Secretly Uses the Quiet Hiring Method – Inc.
- ‘Quiet Hiring’ Is on the Horizon – Here’s What Employers and Employees Need to Know – Entrepreneur
- There’s no actual hiring – Twitter
- Your job expects you to do even MORE stuff – Twitter
- Should retail worry about the ‘quiet quitting’ trend? – RetailWire
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Do you see the “quiet hiring” trend doing more to take advantage of or offer opportunities for existing employees? What advice would you have about communicating and executing such internal reassignments?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
I’m confused. The idea here is to fix quiet quitting with quiet hiring? Isn’t the point of quiet quitting to do the very minimum required to do the job? Adding additional responsibilities to those employees sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. It’s an opportunity for existing employees only if those employees are willing to play.
I agree that it isn’t really “hiring,” more like quiet contracting or ad hoc talent scheduling. That said, we are clearly in a period where employees’ views of work have changed dramatically, faster in fact than many employers’ employment models. So, yes, whatever you want to call it, I think we will see an increase in temporary or contract workers — as is now common in nursing for example — or reassigning workers in a form of skills triage.
This trend sounds very negative to me and this post is the first time I have heard of quiet hiring. I believe the right path here is for management/leadership to simply be honest with people about the results needed and the “state” of the company’s financial infrastructure. There is way too much “us vs. them” implied in this trend, and that may be indicative of an exploitative mindset, either initiated by management somehow or initiated by workers somehow. I believe this partially stems from a lack of transparency and candor from the company in question, and it is not helped by the wide wage gaps in most companies between the lower levels and leadership.
There is a wonderful post in the op-ed section of today’s Wall Street Journal about a legendary football coach (Woody Hayes, Ohio State) turning down a raise. This would never happen in today’s environment.
Isn’t this really old wine in with a new label? Companies have forever been handing out “not my job” assignments to employees, as changing conditions and new demands require the team to flexibly respond without busting the budget.
The concepts of training the human resources already in place, promoting experienced, longer-term employees and improving the working environment for associates are not new. We may have strayed away from them in the past, but they are not new. It is as simple as reinstating what we already know works!
Quiet hiring is mutually-beneficial for employer and employee. Like the article says, the key is how it’s communicated. In other words to pull off quiet hiring well, employers cannot be quiet about it. I would think that employers could present the opportunities they have for high-value “trial assignments” at an all-hands for maximum transparency and buy-in. Then open it up to handraisers as well as say that they will approach people whose skills are transferable to the role. If employees have ownership in the decision, they will be more motivated to perform.
I guess I am just old, but I am not sure I understand the issue here. For the entirety of my career, I was always grateful to have the opportunity to learn new skills. When I did, I became more valuable, either to my current employer or the next one, (if my current employer chose not to compensate me fairly for my new abilities). What am I missing?
Companies need to use “quiet hiring” as part of their overall employee career strategy not as a cost saving measure. Training existing employees to have more skills is great and should be part of a career advancement strategy. If these employees are not trained well and compensated accordingly, you will have just created a skilled, attractive employee for another company needing those skills.
The practice of hiring contractors is nothing new. It’s been going on for decades, and contractors play an important role in many companies. But adding responsibilities to existing workers and not offering commensurate pay/title/benefits is not sustainable long term. In fact, I think this is a great way to kill the work culture that HR and senior leadership work so hard to foster. Companies should be all-in on hiring the best talent possible and continually offering them the capabilities to up-skill. Some years are better than others and therefore hiring picks up, training picks up, while leaner years experience a slowdown. Leadership should be transparent about these issues and try very hard not to veil it as “quiet hiring.”
Perhaps I’m merely a curmudgeon from the past, but this just seems like management to me and nothing really very unique.
Quiet hiring is simply reorganizing the tasks and responsibilities for your existing employees, outsourced talent, and temp workers. It is an essential strategic skill for management to assess how the operation is going and, based on customer and market needs, readjust the approach to working among the team.
The challenge is to know precisely what skills are of each of the employees, what they are willing to do, and gain an understanding of where (in which store) they want to work at what times. That is a lot of data to manage and if you don’t have good management of employee data it can be quite hard to execute.
One key to success would be to gain an understanding of the current skill sets and motivations for learning new skills. This gives the manager a more informed point of view before making wholesale organizational changes.
This is the silliest line extension ever. Quiet quitting. Quiet hiring. What’s next, quiet shouting? You don’t have enough staff and people have to cover. Putting some buzzwords into the discussion helps no one.
Sounds like a new name for something companies have been doing for decades. Adding responsibilities, hiring temp contractors during slower or skittish economic periods is a natural response when the budget is tighter and big bets are off the table. When the economic forecast looks positive again, companies will return to more adventurous habits.
Employees should be told this is reality, not with a dour outlook, but rather everyone may be asked to take on more and to remain flexible. This economic cycle will change. They always do.
Not sure this is much more than rebranding a practice that has been in place longer than I can remember. In the end, “other duties as assigned” seems like it covers this and if employees don’t want to engage, they look elsewhere. I do see a role for more fractional or contract employees in the current environment and going forward to fill important gaps.
Some folks are trying too hard to create new buzzword bingo terms. Nothing new here; keep moving.
This is new? (he asks in his best Looney Toons accent)….
Silly naming aside, this feels like answering a “push” with a “pull.” Bringing in contractors or asking current people to do more with less won’t address the “quiet quitting” problem — it will make it worse. The fundamental problem in the labor market right now is that there is a shortage of labor, and workers who feel undervalued now feel they can assert their leverage to ask for more. Employers who spend time investing in their existing people, and compensating them properly, are going to be leaps and bounds of those looking for short-term solutions.
This is nuts. OK, I read it again to understand. Really? Obviously the people who endorse this NEVER spent more than a week working retail.