In the news this week, we have heard how Nicola Sturgeon has decided to step down. Regardless of my political persuasion, I do have admiration for a leader that stays leading the organisation for the period of time that Nicola has. To take a decision to do something different is a difficult one and takes courage.

Over the last few years, we have seen a new term ‘quiet quitting’ starting to appear in the employment world. This is when employees are putting other priorities above work – regaining partial control of what personally matters in the work/life dilemma. The impact is that staff are either quietly cutting back from the job – perhaps by reducing their discretionary effort, or by changing jobs (although I probably wouldn’t put that in the quiet quitting definition).

This has an organisational impact. Performance and motivation can suffer – being exacerbated through the still present hybrid culture. Managing organisation and being in touch with the culture of organisation, therefore, has never been more important.

However, also coming out of quiet quitting is quiet hiring. Quiet hiring is the retraining, repurposing or upskilling of staff to match talent demand – so is not necessarily about an increase in headcount. The organisation needs to be mildly sophisticated. It needs to have a handle on the talent gap and future requirements – matching required skillset, to existing capability.

This could be through an analysis of similar (perhaps non identical) role in job description

Redefinition (or probably creation) of job description – remembering that a material change could suggest a redundancy consultation requirement

An open conversation, probably through an open review process of wishes, desires and interests of staff. Remembering that if we can identify areas that people are interested in, it is likely that we will achieve greater performance.

Despite the media frenzy surrounding people leaving business in droves, there is therefore also another opportunity. Something that if managed correctly, could lead to organisational improvement and performance.