Organisational structures have traditionally focused on empowering employees to work exclusively in their specialist role – but this may no longer be the most sensible approach for organisations wishing to maximise their capacity and boost productivity. 

Against a backdrop of economic uncertainty and with many organisations being forced to cut headcount, upskilling and cross-skilling look set to be key strategic imperatives this year.

A new phenomenon dubbed ‘quiet hiring’, where organisations bring in new skills from their existing workforce rather than bringing in new hires, seems primed to take off, with Gartner predicting it to be one of the top workforce trends for 2023. But will quiet hiring be the answer to boosting productivity this year?

The antithesis to ‘quiet quitting’

The trend of ‘quiet quitting’ came to light late in 2022, as a sizeable number of employees (particularly younger demographics) actively professed to be doing the bare minimum required to retain their jobs, and forgoing all tasks beyond their assigned duties.

One in three employees consciously participate in quiet quitting, according to research from LendingTree. Gallup’s State of the global workforce 2022 report found the level of employee engagement to be even more alarming, with a mere 17 per cent of Australian and New Zealand workers feeling enthused by their work and workplace in 2022.

In the current economic climate, quiet hiring makes a lot of sense to business leaders. It allows them to eliminate costly recruitment and additional salary costs through filling roles with existing talent from within the business.

But quiet hiring isn’t just a money-saving exercise. When done well, it can far better serve the company’s existing staff too, offering them some key advantages. It provides employees with the opportunity to increase their portfolio of skills through training and to try out working in new areas of the business without losing the stability of their existing role.

“Only by collating and analysing data on current capacity can leaders truly tackle workload balance issues at the root.”

It also opens doors to promotions and roles that might normally be filled through external recruitment. Therefore, organisations that embrace quiet hiring by offering a more varied range of tasks and responsibilities can boost employee morale, provide a more stimulating and rewarding workplace environment and reduce attrition rates.

Of course, there will be some people who are quite happy to continue in their usual roles and may be sceptical of their managers requiring them to take on additional tasks. However, a survey carried out in the US by job search platform Monster found more people are open to quiet hiring than against it – 63 per cent of workers are amenable to the idea, believing it a good opportunity to expand their skill sets.

Critically, a more engaged and fulfilled workforce will naturally impact both customer experience and operational efficiency and productivity. And there has never been a more pressing time for Australian businesses to focus on improving their scores against these priorities – Australia is tipped to avoid entering recession this year by the narrowest of margins, and stagnation in productivity is one of the biggest challenges facing Australian businesses today.

In the financial services sector alone, the situation is particularly worrying. Operational productivity at financial services institutions has steadily improved since the pandemic, according to ActiveOps’s research. However, The Performance Tracker for Operations in financial services Q1 report highlights the need for Australia and New Zealand-based organisations in the sector to urgently address capacity issues to build on productivity gains and fulfil their true potential. 

The capacity conundrum

A common problem for many organisations that is directly impacting upon productivity is that capacity is being squandered, and employers are not getting the most out of their current staff. This is an issue facing organisations across sectors, but, in the financial sector alone, another recent study by ActiveOps revealed that almost a third (62 per cent) of Australian and New Zealand operations professionals recognise that there is spare capacity, but don’t know where it is or how to access it. 

The problem stems from teams working in traditional structures and in silos focused on specific areas of a business. Since they do not have the flexibility or the capability to move workloads between teams, they struggle to cope with fluctuations and are unable to share the load. The same study found more than half of organisations (59 per cent) recognise they need to cross-skill or upskill as they weather the current economic turmoil.

So, how do organisations go about quiet hiring? And how can they be sure they are upskilling in the areas that offer most value to them and the organisation?  

The first step is to identify the roadblocks and capacity issues across the business. Only by collating and analysing data on current capacity can leaders truly tackle workload balance issues at the root and ensure they invest in training the right people and making the right changes that will have a lasting impact on the success of the organisation. 

If organisations embrace this latest ‘quiet’ trend and move to operational structures where teams share a broader range of skills, they will make themselves more agile and better placed not just to survive, but to thrive, despite the current economic challenges.

Faced with the economic downturn, pressures to reduce costs but also to retain and attract staff, quiet hiring provides organisations with a winning tactic. And like other trends that have proved to be fruitful, such as remote working, there is no reason why quiet hiring shouldn’t continue to become the new norm in the workplace of the future. 

Paula Brown is Head of Operations and Group Operations Risk at ActiveOps.

Ensure your team is thinking and acting strategically at every stage of the employment lifecycle with this short course from AHRI.