How 'Quiet Hiring' Is Saving Companies Money

How 'Quiet Hiring' Is Saving Companies Money

You're the boss of a company and you want to save money on recruiting new staff — not to mention avoid the risk of hiring the wrong person.

So what do you do?

According to consultancy firm Gartner, the answer could be "quiet hiring" — the company included it in its top nine workplace predictions for 2023.

A little like "quiet quitting" — the term that gained popularity in 2022 to mean doing the minimum required at work — quiet hiring does not usually involve hiring at all.

In fact, it is really nothing more than a new name for an old thing — call it upskilling staff or reshuffling employees; call it promoting.

Gartner's Emily Rose McRae says quiet hiring means an organization acquiring new skills without hiring any new full-time employees.

That could mean training existing employees and expanding their responsibilities, assigning them to new roles, or even hiring temporary workers to perform specific tasks.

So if quiet quitting benefits the employee, who does quiet hiring benefit?

That depends, says Anthony Nyberg, a professor from the University of South Carolina. It could be good for both parties — the employees gain more skills and often a raise, while the company gains a more productive workforce without worrying about finding outside hires, saving money in the process.

That's when quiet hiring works.

But Nyberg told Fortune that it could also be used to cut costs without rewarding the worker — or "tricking employees into doing undesirable jobs," he says. It could also be a way to give members of staff more work or more challenging tasks for the same pay.

To avoid this, experts say, workers should state their conditions before taking on a new role to ensure they are not exploited — and to ensure that those "quiet hires" don't become "quiet quitters."

Article by engoo.com