JOB HUGGING: The Trend CFOs Can’t Ignore
Are you finding that employees in your organization are just holding on these days? I don’t mean holding on by a thread, although that’s the case for many workers. I mean holding unusually tightly to their jobs. Amid layoffs, economic uncertainty and automation anxiety, “job hugging” (clutching our current roles not because we love them, but because we’re afraid of losing them) continues to be on the rise.
Some leaders quietly celebrate this shift. After years of talent shortages and worker mobility, the power pendulum seems to have swung back to management’s side. But when the economy rebounds, as it inevitably will, those who felt trapped will likely flee, triggering a “Great Resignation 2.0.”
If you aren’t sure what that could cost you, start here: The Cost of Employee Turnover
REAL LOYALTY IS BORN NOT FROM SCARCITY OR FEAR BUT FROM CHOICE AND TRUST.
The Human (and Business) Implications
When endured over long periods of time, job hugging can understandably morph into resenteeism: a term coined by RotaCloud to describe a toxic blend of resentment, absenteeism and presenteeism.
And this is what too many employees are experiencing today. You see it as people who show up physically but check out mentally. They do what’s required and nothing more. They suppress curiosity, suspend innovation, avoid risk and reject growth. The result is usually fatigue, frustration and disengagement.
But that’s where strong leadership is needed. In this moment, when fear constrains performance and possibilities, business leaders have a unique opportunity, and perhaps responsibility, to help their organizations hug back with growth.
From Scarcity to Security
While global economic and employment data explain scarcer and slower hiring in many sectors, affected employees can’t help but take it personally. Many report feeling less marketable, less desirable and stuck.
When organizations offer portable upskilling and reskilling (development that can travel with people), they replace that lack of confidence with a sense of skill security. They send a powerful signal: We care about your long-term growth, not just today’s output. And that can feel like a hug back. This article, Instilling A “Just Skill Me” Mindset at Your Company, includes tips on how to deliver that hug.
Ironically, that freedom to take one’s skills elsewhere actually fosters loyalty that job hugging can extinguish. When employees know they can leave but choose to stay, engagement deepens. Because real loyalty is born not from scarcity or fear but from choice and trust.
Balancing Performance and Growth Modes
Sustained periods of job hugging can take a significant emotional toll; a toll that professional growth can help to reverse. Consider the work of organizational psychologist Nick Petrie, whose research identified that the average worker spends 61% of their time performing (doing what they know) and just 39% growing (learning something new).
Further, he found that this imbalance is draining. Constantly doing more with less erodes energy and engagement whereas growth, on the other hand, is regenerative. Learning something new. Experimenting. Stretching beyond the familiar and known.
These actions don’t just build skill; they offer hope.
How can CFOs help their organizations hug back?
- Advocate for intentional grow time within the workweek and establish leadership and cultural norms that protect it.
- Facilitate microlearning, skill exchanges and short-term stretch assignments that reawaken curiosity.
- Encourage purpose-aligned microlearning projects that connect employee passions to organizational impact.
- Educate your management, helping them see learning not as a distraction from performance but as a strategy to build long-term capacity and retention.
Organizations that guide themselves toward embracing employees with growth will see employees stop holding on out of fear and start showing up out of choice.
Are You Ready To Hug It Out
Finance leaders are, by nature, stewards of the business. That includes the environment in your workplace. Right now, your hug on behalf of the organization is to team you’re your learning and development staff and provide meaningful learning and growth opportunities to our employees. It serves as an emotional safety net, holding people steady through uncertainty and reminding them they are valued.
And when the employment pendulum swings back, as it always does, employees will remember how they felt; capable, valued and invested in. They’ll keep hugging. This time out of choice, not fear.
Julie Winkle Giulioni is a CFO.University Contributor and the author of the bestselling books, “Promotions Are SO Yesterday” and “Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go.”
Originally published on TrainingIndustry.com.
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