Recruitment

BARRY WHELAN D o e s y o u r c o m p a n y u s e ‘ q u i e t r e c r u i t m e n t ’ ?

With an acute labour shortage continuing into 2023, Excel Recruitment’s Barry Whelan explains the new phenomenon of ‘quiet recruitment’ and how it could benefit your business

managing director of Excel Recruitment

www.excelrecruitment.com

The new year is here, bringing with it the same labour shortages that dominated the recruitment landscape for 2022. Whilst measures are taking place to ease the situation, employers, certainly in the retail and hospitality sectors, really cannot see an end in sight.

With that in mind, a new workplace phenomenon has risen, that of ‘quiet recruitment’.

Quiet hiring is when an organisation acquires new skills without actually recruiting new (and in particular, full-time) employees.

At times, this means employing short-term contractors or temporary staff, to relieve pressure or get over a certain hump in the business. At other times, ‘quiet recruitment’ is where an employer encourages their current employees to temporarily move into new roles within the organisation.

The situation for businesses for the next year, whether we go into a recession or not, is that most companies still have ambitious financial targets and need to hire talent to reach those targets. However, with such an acute labour shortage, this lack of specific talent means that businesses need to find a solution to this problem, whilst ever conscious of the cost crisis facing Irish companies in 2023.

The talent shortage that we talked about throughout 2022 hasn’t gone away, so companies are having to explore a workaround while waiting for the right talent to join.

Why quiet recruitment?

Recruitment usually falls into one of three categories: backfilling old roles, creating new ones to help the company grow or addressing an acute, immediate need.

‘Quiet recruitment’ is all about that third category, even if it doesn’t technically involve any new recruits at all. The idea is to prioritise the most crucial business functions at a given time, which could mean temporarily mixing up the roles of current employees.

A good recent example: Australian airline Qantas had an acute shortage of baggage handlers, such that the entire business was affected. Qantas asked executives to address a labour shortage last year by rotating in as baggage handlers to fill this gap.

The executives knew it was the right thing to do and doing so helped keep the business going until this labour shortage was resolved. The second, unforeseen upside of this initiative is that they also gained a deeper understanding of how their operations work, taking valuable insights from the exercise.

There’s some inherent tension here: If you’re temporarily reassigned to a different part of your company, you might interpret that as being told that your regular job isn’t particularly important. After all, nobody’s getting

‘Quiet recruitment’ involves prioritising the most crucial business functions at a given time, which could mean temporarily mixing up the roles of current employees

employed to backfill your old responsibilities.

Employers need to address this by clearly articulating why the specific project or business division is so crucial to the company’s success. It’ll help the employee feel valued, and less likely to see the move as a sign that they need to start looking for jobs elsewhere.

Alternatively, companies with few movable employees can hire shortterm temporary employees to help keep things afloat throughout the year. This represents an external quiet recruitment of sorts, deploying internal employees against the priorities that matter the most, whilst using temporary workers to fill lower priority gaps.

take advantage of ‘quiet recruitment’

No-one wants to get thrown into an entirely new role if they already enjoy their job. Nobody wants to work for a business with massive labour shortages or indeed, one that is crumbling because of that.

With that in mind, an effective quiet recruitment process rests in how it’s rolled out and communicated to employees. If you are asking employees to make this move or being asked to, then your employer should be able to articulate what this means for you and the company.

If your boss suggests a new set of tasks for you, they’ll have more luck motivating you if they can express how much it’ll help move your career forward — whether you’re more interested in climbing the corporate ladder or improving your work-life balance.

Plus, if your company makes an announcement about needing employees to pivot roles, and you’re interested, you can use it as an opportunity to discuss your long-term goals. You might even wrangle a promotion for yourself! n