'Job Hugging' and the Growing Talent Bottleneck Inside Organizations

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Monique Akanbi: Present at their desk, but frozen in place. Some employees show up every day, not because they're thriving. They stay because leaving doesn't feel like an option. Welcome to Honest HR, where we turn real issues facing today's HR departments into honest conversations with actionable insights. I'm your host, Monique Akanbi.

Let's get honest. Today we're diving into job hugging. When employees cling to roles they've outgrown, holding on despite frustration, stalled careers, and limited opportunities for movement. We'll unpack why job hugging is creating talent traffic jams. How uncertainty keeps employees from moving. What leaders can do to free stuck employees.

Joining us is Doreen Coles, Senior Director of Talent and Learning with ADP. Welcome to Honest HR, Doreen.

Doreen Coles: Thanks, Monique. I'm so glad to be here with you.

Monique Akanbi: So Doreen, we spent some time talking about quiet quitting in a previous Honest HR episode. It's a major workforce trend where employees stayed but were burnt out and disengaged. And now we're seeing how that underlying strain has evolved into something new: job hugging. So what shifted between quiet quitting and now, and why are people staying put and holding onto jobs they once seemed ready to leave?

Doreen Coles: Well, you know, I'm fortunate to work for a company that has data in its middle name, so how about I share a little bit of that data with you to answer this question? Based on ADP's National Employment Report, the labor market is slowing compared to the pandemic recovery period. And what that means is that employees might not have the same confidence in going out and landing a better or higher paying job compared to what they felt a few years ago.

Given the current labor market, employees might feel a stronger sense of security sticking with the job that they have right now versus going out and trying to find something new. Adding to this, ADP Pay Insights has found that the pay premium from switching jobs has narrowed significantly compared to the pandemic recovery in 2021 and 2022.

So in January of this year, job changers saw a 6.4% year-over-year (Y/O/Y) pay increase compared to only 4.5% for job stayers. Back in March of 2022, changers saw a 16% pay increase compared to 7.6% for those who stayed in the role. So if there's less money to be made by switching jobs, given the current hiring slowdown, employees are more likely to stay put.

Monique Akanbi: Yeah, that makes sense. So we're seeing that now where job growth in 2025 slowed dramatically compared to 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Report. Compared to 2024, only one quarter of the jobs were added in 2025 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What signals are you seeing that employees are staying out of fear or uncertainty rather than engagement or growth?

Doreen Coles: Well, actually at ADP, we're seeing engagement and growth scores go up according to our recurring engagement pulse survey of associates. We're a strengths-based organization and we utilize a check-in and engagement tool called StandOut, which is available to companies if they're looking to keep a pulse of their employees and get data-driven insights into how they're feeling about work. And then of course, that makes it easier to catch and improve any of those potential engagement problems.

But for employers, the current job hugging trend reinforces the need to keep a constant pulse on their employees to make sure that they understand and they can ensure that engagement, motivation, productivity, all of those things remain strong. So if you currently don't have an engagement pulse tool like StandOut, what you can do is leverage more frequent one-on-ones with your employees to discuss how they're feeling, discuss their sentiment, discuss their career goals.

And more than anything though, it's important that employers not take this as a sign to reduce career growth and development efforts. Just because people are staying doesn't mean you should stop those efforts. In fact, I would say just the opposite. It's the exact right time to keep the workforce engaged and productive by focusing on growth strategies for your employees.

Monique Akanbi: I am so happy you called that out in terms of focusing on career growth and opportunities as employees are staying. From your perspective, what are the consequences that job hugging creates within an organization?

Doreen Coles: There are definitely consequences, Monique, that come with job hugging, and the good news is they can be fabulous for an organization if they're managed correctly. I mean, after all, when I think about hugging, I think it's a good thing, right? So why not job hugging as well, right?

Monique Akanbi: Mm-hmm.

Doreen Coles: So employees are staying in their roles. They're getting better at what they do. They are deepening their expertise, they're getting more efficient, which in turn means that the organization can do more for those people. There's more time for upskilling. If your people are doing their work more efficiently, you're building time into their workday. So there's time for upskilling, learning new things, more time for managers to have those one-on-ones that we talked about, those growth conversations to really understand what each employee is aiming for.

And you know what else? There's more money. There's more money because you're saving on recruiting costs. So more money means you can reward people for other forms of growth. Now, here's the question: What does that mean? What other forms of growth, what is that? This requires an expansion of your traditional definition of what career growth means, that traditional definition that career growth is only accessible by getting promoted or changing your job.

So growth is, I would say growth is and always should be defined as so much more than just movement or a title change. So think about all the ways that people can build their skills. They can learn through education, through exposure, through experience, and then build, borrow, or buy programs that will facilitate that type of skill building. And as your employees in an organization learn new skills or even strengthen the ones they have, the organization can reward them for it. And when I say reward, I'm not talking about giving them more work.

Monique Akanbi: Right.

Doreen Coles: More work, that's not the reward that they want. I'm talking about things that contribute to their total compensation and match their needs with the very best case scenario being one where the employee chooses how they're rewarded.

Monique Akanbi: This makes me think back to when I practiced HR and when we would prepare to have those career development discussions or professional development discussions with employees. And I've seen where organizations that are more flat, meaning in terms of there aren't many opportunities to move upward, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone wants to move upward, right? So I love that you called out creating those opportunities maybe to acquire a new skill, upskilling, as a way to grow or develop your employees as well.

How does job hugging create invisible bottlenecks for those high performing early career employees who are ready to move?

Doreen Coles: Well, first I love that you're calling the bottlenecks invisible. And I say, challenge accepted, Monique, let's bring them to light. Let's shine a light on those. And how do we do that? We have to ensure that our leaders, as we've talked about, are having real time growth conversations with their employees and they can start, leaders in any organization can start with an awareness that careers are personal. Career growth is personal. They are not one size fits all.

As you mentioned, there are some folks who maybe aren't aiming for that next title or a leadership role. So our managers or our leaders need to ask employees to consider their personal definition of career success. What growth are they aiming for right now? Are they feeling stuck? What opportunities for growth are they specifically looking for? Because when managers ask the question, they can then better collaborate, better support their associates and their growth, and they can understand then what perceived bottlenecks may exist.

And next, what the leader can do is help that employee broaden the definition of growth like we discussed earlier, going beyond the traditional promotion and job changes and doing so through a strengths lens with a focus on what activities does that employee love and is great at, which the data tells us is actually the surest path to high performance.

And then we were talking about the leaders, but here's now where the employees can lean in. An employee who wants to change jobs but perceives a bottleneck can start the process right in the job that they're in currently by shifting their work just a little bit at a time, bringing in a new task or a responsibility.

I have an analogy I use. It's of moving a couch, a big, enormous, heavy couch from one corner of your living room to the other corner, all by yourself. Nobody's there to help you.

Monique Akanbi: Mm-hmm.

Doreen Coles: Most of us can't just pick that couch up and put it over in the other corner. But what we can do is we can go to the corner of the couch and we can lift that and just shift the couch just a tiny bit. And then we move to the other side of the couch in the corner and we pick that up and we move it just a little bit. And so we're essentially shifting with little baby steps that couch from one corner to another without too much effort, with some time. Maybe we've pivoted that couch to exactly where we want it, and with our leader in the room maybe moving a side table or getting a rug out of the way, then they are helping us pivot that couch. We're feeling supported, we're feeling seen, we're feeling more energized.

So we think about that in a job, in relation to a job. How cool is it if we can make that happen with our current roles? Slowly over time, converting the job that we have right now into more and more of what we want, more and more of those activities that we love and are great at. And this is a way for an organization to help an employee make that move, so to speak, all on their own.

And one more thing to add there. From an organization side, job hugging then presents an opportunity to look at the business needs and determine where new roles might be able to be created that would meet those business needs and objectives, essentially then creating internal mobility where it actually didn't exist before. Bonus points and even better results when those new roles are filled by internal employees who love and are great at the main tasks of that job description. And I have a personal example of this in action if you're interested.

Monique Akanbi: Absolutely.

Doreen Coles: So I've been with ADP for 20 years now, and my first 10 years were in leadership within the business. I ran service departments and implementation departments. And during my time in the last role in implementation, I got involved with a project. It was a global project that ADP was taking on. And it was based on actually employee feedback and sentiment on careers and career growth.

So after a year or so in that project with some very outstanding milestones that we were able to achieve as a global task force, we looked at the business needs again, and we determined and realized that if we wanted to continue the work that that project team was doing, we had to create a role that was solely dedicated to that work. My job as Senior Director of Talent and Learning was born from that. Just an example of the business taking a look at the needs and creating jobs that did not exist before in order to meet those business objectives.

Monique Akanbi: So those are two good examples and if our audience is anything like me, when you were talking and using the analogy of moving the couch from one part of the area to another, I am just visualizing even within an organization. So that was a great way and thank you for sharing that. Just kind of like that visual in terms of slightly shifting the role of those high performers when there's that perceived bottleneck. We'll continue the conversation in just a few moments. Stay with us.

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Monique Akanbi: SHRM's research report, The Business Case for HR Excellence shows that organizations with high HR maturity experience a decline in voluntary turnover for every unit of improvement as employees are less likely to feel stuck or consider leaving when career development opportunities are in place. So kind of going back to what we were talking about, what happens to motivation and performance when people feel qualified to advance, but see no clear path forward?

Doreen Coles: I'm gonna refer back again to some of ADP's data and research. According to ADP's research, Today at Work report, workers cited that the biggest barrier to career advancement is their current job lacks any opportunity to advance at all. And the research then, of course, tells us that that can lead to quitting. 34% of workers who said that they can't find an opportunity to advance in their current employer said that they were actively looking or interviewing for a new job, and among those who were confident that they could advance, only 6% said that they were actively looking.

So the risk to retention is accompanied by another negative for employers: lower productivity. Workers who feel strongly that they need to change employers to get ahead were 2.6 times less likely to consider themselves highly productive.

Monique Akanbi: It's very interesting. It makes me think about an organization that I used to work for years ago. The organization at the time was in business for, I believe about, we were coming up on our 40th year anniversary. And when we look at tenure and that being the head of HR for that organization, the average tenure for our employees at the time was about a 10-year tenure, right? So that was one of the things that the owner and founder of the organization valued was loyalty. And there were long tenured employees that were there within the organization.

But my question to you during this, at what point does loyalty turn into stagnation, both for the individual and for the organization?

Doreen Coles: Well, you know, Monique, this can actually happen at any point in someone's work tenure if there isn't strong ongoing communication and a clear plan from the organization and the leader on how they'll support that employee's growth. When an employee feels that they have no growth opportunity, they are simply less likely to be productive, they're more likely to be looking for a new job according to that research that we were talking about, ADP's research.

We also know that burnout happens most often when employees are doing work that they may be great at, but that they don't love. So Monique, I bet there are loads of things that you're amazing at in your job. Tell me what typically happens when your boss or your leader sees you just killing it at a particular task.

Monique Akanbi: I feel energized, right. I feel motivated. It kind of reinforces that I'm doing a great job. So, you know, it's motivating.

Doreen Coles: Yes. And what typically does the boss or the leader ask of you when they see that you do a great job at something?

Monique Akanbi: Typically there's often the more, right.

Doreen Coles: That's right. Exactly.

Monique Akanbi: You're so great at this, right?

Doreen Coles: Exactly. I think our audience can definitely relate to that, right? I mean, it happens across industries, across organizations. We know it for a fact. And of course that's amazing. That's great if you actually love doing whatever that task is or that work is. So if the employee loves it though, if they don't like that task that their boss is asking them to do more and more of, that's where your stagnation, your complacency, burnout, and even resentment, those are all common consequences of that happening. And again, this points us right back to the importance of those frequent real-time growth conversations, candid even growth conversations between the leader and their team members that are happening weekly and in the flow of work.

Monique Akanbi: Great. What difficult leadership decisions are organizations going to be forced to make as career paths remain blocked?

Doreen Coles: So I think I have some great news here. Organizations don't have to make difficult decisions if they get more creative with how they can help their employees grow outside of just a title change. So if they stop thinking about career growth as only a literal promotion, they can avoid many of those difficult decisions that could come. And what does that mean?

From an organizational standpoint, if the organization is providing stretch opportunities, stretch assignments and projects, if they're enabling more ownership on projects or giving their employees the opportunity to contribute their strengths to the organization in new and energizing ways, and then as we talked about before, rewarding them for those contributions via a more modernized compensation mechanism and practice.

Monique Akanbi: Think outside the box, right. And I love that. You know, you call out thinking differently or creatively as it relates to approaching those opportunities to advance. It doesn't necessarily have to be the traditional lateral movement or upward movement that we discussed. But maybe looking at ways to shift roles and responsibilities and acquire new skills. What cultural risks emerge when advancement becomes dependent on someone else rather than readiness to grow?

Doreen Coles: Well, any organization that narrowly defines advancement in terms of movement and movement alone runs that risk of all the less than positive things that we have hit on throughout our time today. And as mentioned, the good news is the risk can be mitigated inside virtually any major workforce trend, whatever it happens to be at the time, by committing to the ongoing growth strategies for its employees. You think about it, growing your employees is growing your business and employee growth should never be limited to promotion only.

Monique Akanbi: That's really good. Thanks for sharing that. And as we wrap up, Doreen, I want to get your take on a scenario that could be happening in the workplace. So there's a hiring freeze. There's no new roles. There's no promotions. Turnover is nearly zero because people are job hugging. Meanwhile, your strongest early career talent is getting restless and you're afraid they'll leave for a new opportunity elsewhere. As a leader, what would you do and what mindset shift has to happen first?

Doreen Coles: Well, I'll share with you Monique. I have a couple of early career children. Adult children, of course. And if this was happening to them, my guidance would be go grab the corner of that couch and let's get it to where you want it to go.

Monique Akanbi: I'm laughing because as you were talking and as I'm asking you the question, I'm thinking of the couch. So that's forever embedded in my brain now, right. Awesome. Well, Doreen, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us.

Doreen Coles: My pleasure. It's been so nice chatting with you today.

Monique Akanbi: Well, that's going to do it for this week's episode of Honest HR. We'll catch you next time.

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