Table of Contents
1. What is Quiet Hiring?
Quiet hiring, or silent hiring, is a strategy used to acquire new skills or capabilities in organizations without having to hire new employees, thus resorting to internal talent. To increase their productivity and fill skills gaps without hiring new employees, they assign more work to employees already part of the organization. With this tactic, workers are given more tasks and responsibilities, sometimes outside their specialty and even their capabilities.
This new trend in human resources is just the opposite of another trend: silent resignation or quiet quitting, in which employees work on the exact tasks that their job entails.
2. Advantages of Quiet Hiring
2.1 Cost savings
This is the main and most obvious benefit. Quiet hiring is a highly cost-effective way to fill skill gaps without hiring new workers. Leveraging internal talent to fill a need instead of going through a hiring process can be very effective.
2.2 Flexibility
This strategy allows resources to be quickly available in the areas that need them at all times. In addition, upskilling employees and allowing them to try other types of tasks can increase retention, engagement, and productivity.
2.3 Motivation
For people who are stuck in their job, who experience boredom with their tasks or who do not have a clear career plan, silent hiring is a way to break the monotony and challenge themselves with new challenges.
2.4 Bridging gaps
Hand in hand with performance reviews and
potential, it is
a great way to find talent gaps in skills and improve staff management. In addition, if they are reviewed regularly, increased stress or demotivation can be quickly detected.
2.5 Detection of star employees
With the help of a
talent map, quiet hiring begins with an
internal analysis to identify the best-qualified employees and those who are willing to go beyond their current responsibilities and are willing and able to take on a new role.
3. Disadvantages of Quiet Hiring
3.1 Lack of diversity
One of the main drawbacks of quiet hiring is the lack of diversity that comes from not actively looking for talented people outside the team, limiting potential employees who would bring new knowledge and experience and who could offer innovative ideas.
3.2 Increased stress or burnout syndrome
Increasing tasks instead of replacing or prioritizing them will inevitably lead to an increase in stress. After all, we are talking about a trend that makes one person do the work of two.
3.3 Demotivation
If employees have a greater workload but maintain the same salary and do not have new benefits, how are we going to sustain this situation over time? What could be attractive in the short term, can cause total demotivation in the medium or long term.
3.4 Lack of commitment
If managers or the organization are not being honest with quiet hiring and simply overloading employees with tasks, the chances are that the commitment is undermining. Carrying out tasks that do not have to do with their functions or their preparation and that, perhaps, they do not even like or motivate, can cause a brain drain.
4. What to take into account as an employee?
If you know or perceive that a quiet hiring strategy is being carried out in your company, before letting yourself go and taking on new tasks, pay attention to these tips:
Assertiveness
Assertiveness is the ability to adequately communicate, without hostility and honestly, our opinions. This way of expressing yourself always respects others but, above all, respects your own needs and feelings.
That is, we must communicate assertively in order to express our limits and our capabilities. The tasks can be infinite, but the work time will be the same, so you have to be able to prioritize and decide.
Negotiation
If you are going to have a heavier workload and may even need to learn to do certain things on your own, now is the time for you to have a conversation with your manager. Describe what you are currently working on and ask yourself what your priorities should be to achieve departmental success.
If you can't negotiate a raise, you can apply for other benefits. In this post we encourage you to be creative when negotiating many other aspects that are not the increase in salary and that may be important for your professional career.
Self-assessment and evaluation
You have to make sure that you have the necessary skills to take on these new tasks. To do this, propose to your manager to carry out a self-assessment evaluation to find out your strengths in the face of these new proposals. If
you don't convince them , you can do a self-assessment yourself and be very clear about your areas for improvement and your positive gaps.
5. Conclusion
As with everything, and especially with HR trends, there is no universal pattern. Each employee, each task, each responsibility and each organizational culture are different and have very different needs.
If you really can't hire new talent and you need your team to take on new responsibilities, our recommendation is not to do it silently, but to speak honestly and clearly, communication should always be transparent!