The corporate world has seen quiet quitting, moonlighting, career cushioning, rage applying, great resignation and many other workplace trends in the recent tumultuous past. However, all that is set to be overtaken by ‘quiet hiring’ — a trend which has started to dominate the 2023 job market space.
It was even named one of the nine workplace trends of the year by technology research and consulting firm Gartner.
Several media reports suggest that companies have been using quiet hiring for a long time in a ‘quiet’ manner — increasingly more since the 2022 economic downturn.
A report by inc.com suggests that tech giant Google actively engaged in quiet hiring in 2022.
But what is the buzz about quiet hiring all about?
What is quiet hiring?
As mentioned above, quiet hiring has been in the industry for a long time but, true to character, it has stayed pretty quiet.
It’s a tactic that companies use to get new skills in their workforce without hiring new employees.
How does quiet hiring happen?
Quiet hiring starts with the company assessing its current workforce. With this, the organisation finds employees who have been working above and beyond their job description.
When the company sees the worker's input and performance, it gives them a raise or promotion, thus saving the worker a job search as well as saving the company money on the hiring process.
“Quiet hiring is used by companies to reskill, upskill and redeploy employees without having to increase headcount and spend time and money on fresh talent acquisition. Global companies have long been zeroing in on productive and high-performing existing talent to reassign higher roles. Quiet hiring has been quite efficient for businesses to meet evolving organisational requirements while keeping costs low within stipulated timelines,” Sachin Alug, CEO, NLB Services, told CNBC-TV18.com.
But is this just a tactic by corporates to not hire more people?
Emily Rose McRae, Senior Director of Research at Gartner has this to say. “With quiet hiring, we’re talking about an organisation strategically, at a leadership level, looking at the talent they have across the organisation and where the critical gaps are and finding ways to fill those. It’s trying to acquire new skills and capabilities without acquiring new people,” she told ABCNews.
Simply put, quiet hiring is a way in which companies find what they need concerning talent in their own company and also provide the talent with adequate raises and promotions. This saves the company from going through the hiring process, training people to company policies and even utilising their existing workforce better. For employees, it helps them to get a better job position in the same company and cancels out the time spent on job searches.
“Big companies or small, quiet hiring is an effective tool not only from a talent management perspective but sending out a very positive signal within the organisation,” Mayur Taday, Chief Business Officer, TeamLease Services told CNBC-TV18.com.
Is quiet hiring a win-win for both employees and companies?
Well, quiet hiring does sound a bit complicated as there are chances that companies might just overwork the employees without giving them the benefits.
A user on Reddit said: “No one is getting promoted for doing multiple jobs. They will keep you there, as their obedient workhorse, with minimal raises and zero support until something breaks. There is no reward for taking on extra tasks — except more tasks.”
Experts, while suggesting that quiet hiring is a win-win for both employees and companies, felt that employees must communicate their needs so that they do not end up getting overworked.
“If the company asks you (an employee) to switch to some other role looking after evaluating your work and if you feel that the role being offered is of better grade then do state your conditions concerning work hours and internal appraisal,” Swastik Jain an HR expert told CNBC-TV18.com
Similarly, Monster's poll found that more people are open to the idea than the opposite. According to the survey, 63 percent of workers see this as an opportunity to broaden their skills.
“If done well, quiet hiring stands to mutually benefit both employers and employees. In a scenario of talent crunch and skill gaps, quiet hiring offers a viable alternative to talent acquisition and hiring through a time and cost-effective means. Thus, enabling businesses to meet immediate needs with agility and resourcefulness,” said Alug.
For employees, quiet hiring provides an avenue of growth through opportunities for upskilling and taking their roles and responsibilities to the next level. This also comes as an aid for employees to renegotiate their salaries and expect appropriate promotions within their organisations, he further added.
Looking at the current scenario in the job market — with layoffs, pay cuts and hiring freezes wreaking havoc — quiet hiring looks like a trend which will not be quiet anymore and dominate the workplace in 2023.
Cary Cooper, an organisational psychology professor at The University of Manchester and member of the Academy of Management, told Fortune that quiet hiring in different names and forms has always occurred during difficult economic times like recessions and hyper-inflationary periods.
As per Cooper, between “destabilising economic and geopolitical upheavals,” businesses will be very reluctant to hire more people, instead aiming to keep labour costs at a bare minimum.
So quiet hiring is here to stay but remember to communicate your conditions for money and work-life balance if your company decides to quiet hire you.
