Addressing skills shortages in 2024 with ‘quiet hiring’

With a reserved hiring market in 2023, we begin the new year with a positive outlook, expecting more action with clients putting those strategic hiring plans in place for 2024. As we predict there will be a push with growth plans, staff retention remains at the forefront of all businesses. 

The last two years, we saw the trend of employees 'quietly quitting' as a result of their lack of motivation, not enjoying their role, and only applying the minimum requirements of their job. This trend had a negative impact on the overall happiness and culture of the workforce in different industries. It is estimated that this behavior would have resulted in £55.1 million lost discretionary hours in the UK labour market each year from 2020 to 2022, this figure is based on 24.5 million full-time workers in the UK.

To counteract this trend, employers are turning to 'quiet hiring' to acquire new skills without committing to consistently hiring permanent employees. This trend has resulted in a significant impact on skill shortages and employee satisfaction as temporary workers provide flexible and scalable solutions to workforces where permanent employees have felt overstretched, leading to decreased retention rates. 

The Government HSE insights reveal that 1.8 million workers suffered from work-related illness, of which 875,000 workers suffered from work-related stress, depression, and anxiety. These statistics highlight the importance of addressing the quiet quitting trend and the need for businesses to consider alternative solutions to support their People Strategy and business culture.
 

How to adopt quiet hiring into your business?

Quiet hiring can be an internal or external hiring solution. In the internal approach, organisations offer new career prospects to performing employees, ultimately committing to an extended career pathway where employees can consistently upskill and work their way up an organisation, re-motivating a disengaged workforce. However, this approach requires additional planning and investing time to develop the strategy across the business.

The alternative approach is external quiet hiring, where our experienced teams can support your business by sourcing skilled individuals on a scalable temporary basis. This approach transforms the overall business output, wellbeing, and efficiency, while adopting a cost-effective development for your People Strategy.
 

How can we help?

At Huntress, our teams are experts in providing flexible temporary and permanent hiring solutions across various sectors, including Accounting & Finance, IT, Marketing, HR, Procurement & Supply Chain, and Customer Service. 

Our track record speaks for itself:
•    33 sectors supported across 2023
•    189 towns and cities covered across the UK
•    60,139 active candidates on our database
•    5,467 average candidates added each month
•    1,123 clients hiring solutions supported in 2023

If you want to discuss your hiring strategy for 2024 and plan for long-term success within your business, please get in touch with our teams.