Michele Harmon
In resuming the topic of recruitment from last month, I want to mention the latest buzzword: quiet hiring. Remember quiet quitting and quiet firing? I would be a millionaire if I could be clever enough to come up with these terms. I want to give credit to Gartner’s “future of work” team, who appear frequently in the research about the latest trends in human resources management.
Quiet hiring is about internal upskilling of your staff, who either take the initiative independently or benefit when the organization offers the opportunity to take on more responsibility, learn more, and win career advancement. It is job rotation at its best. On an executive scale, large corporations have been doing it for decades. A future executive is identified and then is helped to rotate between departments.
Organizations need to consider using Google’s strategy of under-the-radar recruiting, looking for internal talent and external talent. Remember, every one of your employees is a recruiter.
Organizations must think strategically and look at their current talent to fill critical gaps. Can your organization upskill its current headcount to fill talent gaps? Organizations need to work more with their current staff because costs continue escalating, and no one can predict when the Federal Reserve will stop raising interest rates in their attempt to get inflation under control. I want to interject here that the cost of employee healthcare is out of control, which means that, where headcount is concerned, less may be more. Deploy your staff strategically.
Staff will need to be more flexible. A staff member may be in accounting today and tomorrow in another department. Talent needs to be deployed where the needs are. No one needs to be sitting idly while other staff are overwhelmed.
I call on leaders to walk the halls. Listen, watch, and learn.
If you plan on moving talent amongst different departments, then, as part of your process, you must clearly communicate the strategy to every staff member. Explain that you want to retain all your staff and then give the reasons for your move, such as the overall shortage of talent in the workplace, the Great Resignation, the overall brain drains of the loss of the Baby Boomers, etc. Be specific.
Quiet hiring is an opportunity for your current staff to learn new skills and transition to another area of the company. You may want to give the employees who are moved a one-time bonus because change is stressful, and it is natural to fear the unknown. Make the move a win-win.
Stephen Covey had several components of a win-win strategy. The main idea was to collaborate more effectively by building high-trust organizations. In these ongoing unusual times, trust will be vital to implementing a quiet quitting strategy.
In the long run, if it isn’t a win for both of us, we both lose. That’s why win-win is the only real alternative in interdependent realities. Stephen Covey.
“Your employees are the heart of your organization.” Dr. Michele Harmon is a Human Resource professional, supporting clients in Texas and New Mexico that range in size from five to more than 3,000 employees. Email: micheleharmon1@gmail.com