Labor market buzzwords have filled the last few years of HR headlines, from “The Great Resignation” during the height of the pandemic to the trends that followed: boomerang employees; quiet quitting; and the latest clickable term, quiet hiring. While they’ve populated headlines to spark shock in the HR community and the talent pool, these buzzy terms are just new names for preexisting ideas and behaviors.
The employer-employee relationship is in constant flux, with each side learning how best to complement the other while fulfilling its own needs. When external forces like a pandemic or an economic downturn affect those relationships, both sides tend to assume nefarious intentions and search for an enemy. Popular phrases like quiet quitting and quiet hiring reflect those adversarial perspectives. Someone has to be the enemy, and in the world of HR, there are two options: the employer and the employee.
A Candidate’s Market
Which character plays the role of the enemy in this cyclical narrative depends primarily on the state of labor. Consider quiet quitting, a term that casts employees as the villain. The phrase dominated headlines during a candidate’s market. Employees and job seekers asked for higher salaries, more benefits, and greater flexibility as organizations desperately tried to fill vacancies left by the Great Resignation.
The characteristics described as “quiet quitting,” or completing the bare-minimum job requirements, signing off at 5 p.m., and refusing to go “above and beyond,” aren’t novel. Rather than pointing to villainous intentions, these behaviors demonstrate a lack of employee engagement. Quiet quitters weren’t leaving their jobs; they took the lead on resetting work/life balance expectations. Their actions showed a renunciation of the hustle culture so many companies have demanded for decades, ignoring study after study showing the importance of work/life balance.
As a workplace trend, quiet quitting reflected a company’s lack of transparency far more than it revealed employee work ethic. The shift in power dynamic allowed HR leaders to take a better pulse on employee needs, reflect on feedback, and reestablish work/life boundaries. But this work wasn’t groundbreaking—it was timely and necessary, especially for fully remote companies focused on establishing a balanced and engaging workplace culture.
An Employer’s Market
The term “quiet hiring” also reflects the changing labor dynamic. An employer’s market has emerged in the face of extended economic uncertainty, with no industry immune from layoffs and hiring freezes. As companies attempt to do more with less, they’ve reallocated resources to accomplish their business goals without adding full-time employees. A shift in the workforce narrative demands a change in antagonist from the employee to the employer—and a buzzy new term.
“Quiet hiring” topped Gartner’s “9 Future of Work Trends for 2023.” Gartner positions quiet hiring as the polar opposite of quiet quitting: a move by employers to extract more value from their existing workforce. The analyst firm anticipates three specific ways organizations will use quiet hiring to fill skills gaps and support critical functions without adding new full-time employees:
- Emphasizing internal talent mobility to address business priorities;
- Providing upskilling opportunities aligned with evolving organizational needs; and
- Using alternative approaches, including engaging gig workers and leveraging alumni networks, to fill talent needs flexibly.
While some conversations around quiet hiring characterize it as employers’ hostile reaction to quiet quitting, the tactics Gartner lays out align with evolving employee expectations and the future of work.
The World Economic Forum predicts over 1 billion people will need reskilling by 2030 to meet evolving societal and economic demands. Developing new skills benefits organizations and the workforce, and many employees have begun upskilling independently. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) research, over 50% of employees pursue learning opportunities outside their workplace, primarily to enhance their career development. And the workforce’s millennial and Gen Z members prioritize learning and development opportunities in their job searches.
Other talent management practices discussed as quiet hiring—using alumni networks, internal talent mobility, and contractors to fill needs—are nothing new either. While “quiet” implies a secretive nature to these tactics, these strategies are well known and openly practiced. HR professionals have long relied on trusted sources for candidate referrals. Contractor use ebbs and flows as companies navigate changing business needs. And nearly every organization has shifted job responsibilities or asked workers to contribute cross-functionally to meet evolving organizational priorities.
How Employers and Employees Can Find Common Ground
External forces will always affect how employees and employers view each other, but those changes don’t have to control how organizations and their workers get along. HR professionals can bring the employer-employee relationship into greater harmony by returning to the basics: keeping a pulse on their people and communicating change clearly. Understand what’s powering employee engagement by asking the right questions, invite employees to partner with the organization to pursue business goals, and create an environment where all workers know their voice is heard. It’s simple, but it’s not easy.
Focusing on what’s at the heart of HR—the people—will help organizations through the ups and downs of the labor market and whatever buzzy word comes their way next.
Ryan-Mae McAvoy is the Director of People at Blackthorn.io. RyanMae has been in HR and People Operations for more than 10 years, she has a heavy background in the functional operation of all things people related (Benefits, Payroll, compliance). In the recent years she has shifted her focus to employee engagement, experience, culture, and healthy workplaces for both employees and leaders. She is based in the Bay Area and enjoys concerts, coffee, wine, and hanging out with her husband and cats.