The business and operating environment for organizations in the past few years has made employers experience extensive and prolonged economic uncertainty. This has manifested in layoffs in the private and not-for-profit sectors as well as delayed or postponed hiring decisions in the public sector. Organizations have adopted mechanisms of coping with this volatile and uncertain environment by trying to get more results with fewer employees. Indicators of this kind of action include increased workloads for employees (through placing them in acting roles for prolonged periods), increased recruitment and numbers of volunteers, gig-workers, and temporary workers. This behavior on the part of employers is the 2023 trending term “Quiet hiring.”

Quiet hiring is Gartner’s top “future of work” trend for 2023.

Quiet hiring, according to Gartner involves employers working towards acquiring or leveraging new skills and capabilities without adding to its staff head count or full-time employees. How does this manifest in African terms?

1. Placing staff in acting positions for prolonged periods sometimes even beyond legally required periods
2. Creating positions for volunteering or increasing the number of volunteers in the organization
3. Hiring short-term consultants or gig workers or casual workers
4. Using referrals, head-hunting without publicly advertising for such positions

Quiet hiring, as you will observe is not necessarily a new trend but has been taken on in greater proportion than before.

Quiet hiring brings benefits to employers including cost savings, shorter time-to-hire, quality hires, improved employee retention, and potentially a stronger organizational culture.

How to carry out quiet hiring

While quiet hiring delivers the bulk of benefits to employers, there are a number of risks that could impact the HR practitioners’ work if not attended to adequately. The top three areas of focus for the HR practitioner should be:

1. Maintain diversity: Quiet hiring has the tendency to draw organizations towards having employees who share similar backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. To mitigate this, leverage the opportunity to tap into diversity by using gig-workers, volunteers more than personal referrals and personal recommendations
2. Compliance: Quiet hiring in practice is fraught with HR compliance risks in areas of transparency, fairness, and openness among others. Issues to do with off-payroll payments to volunteers are a common source of run-ins with tax administrators. Challenges of retention of volunteers beyond the stipulated statutory timelines also pose compliance risks to employers. To mitigate this, the HR manager needs to work with the employer’s lawyers to work out a mechanism through which quiet hiring practices are checked for compliance with legal and statutory requirements.
3. Discrimination allegations: Quiet hiring practices are prone to allegations of favoritism and discrimination especially if the is no clear process of how the hires are identified. For example, using referrals may be deemed discriminatory if access to the referral network is restricted or limited. To mitigate this, HR practitioners need to enshrine in their HR Policies, provisions that allow for this flexibility in hiring. While it may be an acceptable (and a policy-enshrined) practice, it may still raise ethical questions.
4. Missed opportunities: Quiet hiring poses the threat of missing on top talent because of the approach taken to hire. To mitigate this, the HR practitioner should enforce the same strict testing and selection processes utilized in normal hiring practices to ensure that the right quality is maintained.

While the term “quiet hiring” is relatively new, the practice is not new. It has both benefits and risks and by being brought to the forefront, the practice of quiet hiring is now in the spotlight and employers are going to be met with greater scrutiny of their HR practices. HR Managers should prepare to mitigate any risks accrued to quiet hiring while enjoying the benefits the practice brings.

If you are grappling with how to keep your organization afloat or your organization has a legacy of quiet hires that pose an HR risk, you can express interest in HR MENTORING, or get in touch with Coach Andeh for advice.

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