Imagine if every October, Santa had to update his résumé, hitch Rudolph to his sleigh, and fly to the nearest Macy’s to interview for a seasonal job. Luckily for Kris, the department store’s shortened, digital-first seasonal hiring process does not require applicants to jump through many hoops.

“We have a longstanding and very special relationship with Santa Claus,” said Macy’s head of talent John Patterson.

That relationship now extends to his helpers, too. In order to stay competitive in a tight labor market, companies including both Macy’s and UPS—which plan to recruit 41,000 and 100,000 seasonal workers this year respectively—have revamped their hiring processes to meet their end-of-year goals. To woo potential hires, they’re relying more heavily on speed and ease, rather than depth.

“Candidates are speaking, either by ghosting or not applying to jobs that have onerous processes, and if you don’t respond, you’re gonna get left behind,” said Matt Lavery, UPS’s talent acquisition director.

Hiring workers is still an issue. Macy’s and UPS have prioritized the candidate experience in order to make sure how they recruit seasonal talent doesn’t impact who they’re able to hire. Both Patterson and Lavery view their hiring process as a competitive advantage.

“We’ve seen a lot of uncertainty the last few years in all sorts of different ways in the economy,” said Andy Challenger, SVP of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which tracks seasonal hiring each year. “But one thing that’s been pretty consistent for two years is that companies have needed to hire flat-out as fast as they can.”

But that’s not discouraging HR teams. Challenger noted that the environment is “creating all sorts of innovations in hiring.”

Keep reading here.—AD

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected] or DM @adamderose on Twitter. For completely confidential conversations, ask Adam for his number on Signal.

In August, the Wall Street Journal spotted an unassuming TikTok in the wild and introduced the concept of “quiet quitting” to the masses. After the video was cited by the paper, the quiet-quitting rocket ship ignited its afterburners and went full supernova, and it still hasn’t come back to Earth.

Suddenly, quiet quitting—when workers disengage from their jobs, but continue to do the bare minimum—is trending like a YouTuber’s boxing match: CEOs are worried about it, HR leaders are scrambling to address it, and at least half of US workers admit to falling into the quiet quitting camp.

As a reporter who covers HR, I’ve been bombarded with emails from publicists using quiet quitting as a springboard into other timely workplace trends, such as:

Loud quitting. Quitting…but IN ALL CAPS? According to one publicist’s recent email, this is when an employee lashes out by writing scathing company reviews online, probably with the intention of drawing negative attention for the employer.

Quiet firing. According to the management consultancy Team Building, this occurs “when management creates non-ideal work conditions to make an underperforming employee quit.” (Shh, but the Wall Street Journal tackled this one, too.)

Quiet fleecing. This refers to wage disparity between regular workers and top earners. As the Economic Policy Institute put it on Twitter: “Workers are more productive than ever, but their pay hasn’t kept pace while top 1% wages have skyrocketed.” (Of course, the widening wealth gap in the US isn’t a new thing, the same think tank is quick to point out.)

Fast quitting. Quitting, but perhaps with a pair of Guy Fieri’s trademark shades on? Keep reading here.—SB

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected] or DM @SammBlum on Twitter. For completely confidential conversations, ask Sam for his number on Signal.

Mikael Bäckström may have taken an unlikely route to HR, but his north star has always been service. The chief people and sustainability officer at assistive technology company Tobii Dynavox started his career in the Swedish military, with plans to focus on bookkeeping, when he realized his knack for managing military volunteers and found his way into learning and development. He recently spoke with HR Brew about his role and the intersection of sustainability and HR.

How would you describe your specific job to someone who doesn’t work in HR? Heading up people and sustainability means that I work on and help create the strategies around how we as a function…can support the business growth. It has to do with building support and structure to get the best out of teams and people, [and] how to ensure everyone knows where we are headed, build the leadership that the company needs, set up structures for how to reward and compensate people…grow people, [and] build our social and environmental responsibility in our work.

The flip side of that is that my teams and I also need to address when things aren’t working and support improvements. It is an important part of my job to make sure that we live up to our commitments and communicate clearly on all of our sustainability areas—including strong business ethics, a fair, diverse, and inclusive workplace, and a low impact on the environment.

You have a unique combination of roles. How does sustainability function within HR? From an environmental standpoint, it’s not as far-fetched as one might think, because…a company [is] supposed to decrease CO2 emissions.

From an HR standpoint, we are usually the learning and development part of an organization, and it’s about getting people to understand their own footprint and the footprint they make in their work role, and how to contribute to a better and greener planet.

How are employees part of the sustainability journey? Keep reading here.

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected] or DM @Kris10Parisi on Twitter. For completely confidential conversations, ask Kristen for her number on Signal.

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: 43% of US employees say they have witnessed or experienced discrimination like racism, ageism, sexism, or homophobia on the job. (Glassdoor)

Quote: “For virtual reality to really reach its full potential, we need to get to the point where the 200 million people who buy new PCs each year for work can do some or all of their work even better in the metaverse.”—Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the company’s plans to break into the PC market by bringing VR headsets into the workplace (the Wall Street Journal)

Read: The tight labor market has more employers trying to keep current employees at all costs, which could help stave off a recession—even as the Fed continues to combat rising inflation with interest rate hikes. (the New York Times)