Introduction
Dissatisfaction at both professional and personal levels can easily lead to disengagement and quitting among employees.
59% of employees globally are quiet quitting, according to the State of the Global Workplace 2022 report by Gallup.
How your workforce is being managed on a day-to-day basis is the marker of this number.
Disengaged employees not only suffer from low productivity themselves but can also often cause friction for the high-performing ones. If this crisis is not averted, it could prove to be detrimental to your future workforce and business success.
In this blog we will discuss in detail the importance of employee engagement, signs and symptoms of disengaged employees and the best ways to re-engage them.
Importance of Employee Engagement
Poor employee engagement results in increased employee turnover, costing millions to organizations.
The 2022 Gallup’s report underlines that low engagement costs around 8.8 trillion dollars, i.e., 9% of the global GDP. This is more than enough to impact the development of the entire world population.
Low engagement rates are a signal that there might be things that you are not doing right when it comes to workforce management. Business efficiency depends on collective efforts, proper communication and a thriving work environment.
Engagement rate, in a broader sense, can be an indicator of employee wellbeing and how motivated your employees feel at work. Low motivation can impact productivity and thereby create a gap between the maximum output an employee can give and the output they are currently giving. When the rate of engagement is high, this gap starts to narrow down significantly.
When practiced effectively, employee engagement can ensure decreased employee turnover and increased revenue. Engaged employees are ready to bear the challenges that your organization may face. They are your biggest advocates when it comes to brand promotions and employer value propositions.
Gallup establishes that managers are one of the biggest influences for an employee in their workplace thereby making them 70% in ensuring employee engagement.
For managers to be effective executors of the practice, the higher management needs to equip them with relevant tools and training to identify disengaged employees and thereby initiate the revival process.
Signs of Disengaged Employees
When observed closely, the signs of disengagement in your employees can easily be figured out from their behavior. Find below a list of signs among disengaged employees.
1. Silence or Poor Communication
Are your employees silent during team calls and are not responding back to emails? Are they not sharing updates on the assigned tasks? This is a clear sign of disengagement among employees. This happens when employees start to feel unheard by their employers and lose their sense of ownership and accountability for the work they do.
2. Apathy
An apathetic approach towards work and organization is a red flag when it comes to employee engagement. Apathy can show up in different ways: it can be when an employee has a lack of commitment towards the work they do; it can be when they start exhibiting a don’t care attitude; it can also be when they do not go above and beyond to defend their ideas and are not willing to take any form of accountability at work.
3. Absenteeism
Have your usually high-performing employees suddenly started skipping work? Are they making unreasonable excuses for not coming to work? If this is the case, then you might want to check on them to confirm if it’s just a cold or deep-down; they have just lost interest in work and are quiet quitting.
4. Missed Deadlines and Decline in Quality of Work
Has there been a sudden drop in the quality of work produced by your most talented set of employees? Are they now failing to meet deadlines and making excuses for doing so? Monotonous or mismatched skills and job roles can lead to missing out on important tasks or just somehow completing the tasks, leading to poor work quality.
5. Burnout
Unreasonable working hours, strict project timelines and too much stress at work can create a lot of pressure on the employees, which can eventually lead to burnout. Burnout can be caused by prolonged exhaustion and inability to draw boundaries between work and self-care.
6. Lack of Participation
Are some of your employees displaying disinterest in taking the lead? Are your employees finding ways to not only ditch work but even fun activities like team lunches and company outings? This might be a result of not feeling connected to the people and not having a sense of belongingness towards the organization.
How to Revive Disengaged Employees
Before the quiet quitters start searching for opportunities outside, you should hold the reigns and deploy practices that can help you retain your best talents. In this section we will discuss 6 ways to re-engage your currently disengaged workforce.
1. Transparent Communication
On-on-one meetings at regular intervals in a great way to kickstart the culture of transparent communication. Reach out to your employees, talk to them, make the effort to know about the issues they might be facing and the suggestions they might have to encounter or resolve these problems.
2. Build Trust
Engage in active listening and taking feedback from employees about how their experience can be improved. Make your employees feel heard, take regular feedback, and take the necessary actions to resolve existing frictions and conflicts. Allow autonomy to take decisions at their level to increase accountability and sense of ownership.
3. Rewards and Recognitions
Indulge in evaluating performance on a continuous basis and reward hard work. Equip managers with a performance management system software to allow them to assign and track KPIs on a regular basis. Recognize your people for the hard work they do and reward them openly, so everyone gets motivated towards goal achievement.
4. Career Development
Use a combination of performance management system and learning and development system to chalk out a clear career path for your employees. Align tailored upskilling plans and training sessions with the interest and the needs of the employees. This exercise will help in improving the performance of your employees and fulfilment of the employee goals.
5. Work-life Balance
Facilitate positive work environment and flexibility to help establish a work-life balance for your employees. Help them set boundaries and regulate productivity and performance levels so that they don’t have to take work back to their homes on holidays on a regular basis.
6. Collaboration and Teamwork
Encourage your employees to work in teams and create bonds that go beyond the four walls of your office. Facilitate team-building events and promote collaboration and friendships with cross-functional teams.
Conclusion
A proactive approach towards mobilizing employees and building an organizational culture is the way forward. The sense of satisfaction among employees can be increased when they are provided with a healthy and supportive work environment. Building lasting relationships with co-workers that go beyond professionalism can serve as a huge source of motivation for your people. Your workforce is future-ready when your organization willingly facilitates career growth, personal development, and lasting bonds.
