The quiet quitting trend has been a hot topic in the business world and media for some time. While the name is new the issue is old and well-known to business leaders- employee disengagement.
And this may be a reaction to the extremely stressful Covid era that introduced a changed perception of the workplace and unprecedented insecurity. Employees that enjoyed increased flexibility and work/life balance don’t want to go back to working long hours and sacrificing their private life to work.
While quiet quitting supporters state that this is their revolt against a hustle culture that demands employees’ 24/7 availability for work, many contrasting voices say that quiet quitting is about lazy, unmotivated workers.
But is this true?
And how can you justify such a one-sided outlook on this issue?
The fact is that more and more employees are willing to work only on tasks that fit their job description and within set work hours sends a message that there may be more serious reasons behind quiet quitting than business leaders are willing to admit. And according to the Harvard Business Journal quiet quitting is all about bad bosses, not bad employees, emphasizing that managers are responsible for keeping employees happy and engaged in their work.
One survey backs up this statement, showing that employees are willing to go above and beyond for leaders they appreciate and trust. Effective leaders able to balance out workloads and build trustworthy relationships will have 63% of employees ready to go above and beyond, while 2% of them will be prone to quiet quitting. However, ineffective leaders with poor leadership styles will drive 14% of employees to quietly quit, and only 20% of them to do more than necessary at work.
If you don’t want to fall into the latter category, keep reading. Here you’ll find ways to address the quiet quitting trend in your company. Get to the core of this issue and find ways to make your employees satisfied and motivated to do their best again.
Reveal the Motives for Quiet Quitting
To find efficient ways to diminish the effect of quiet quitting in your workplace, first, you need to know employees’ reasons for embracing this trend. Instead of assuming the reasons for disengagement, host honest 1 on 1 meetings with employees and listen carefully without passing judgment.
You may find out that situation is not as bad as you think. You may only need to make a few workload adjustments to improve employee work/life balance and get them back on track regarding high performance.
Adjust Your Expectations
Delegating tasks and distributing workloads can be demanding and time-consuming. You have to know what tasks to assign to what employees, and how much workload is enough for each of them. You also need to lead by example and set boundaries when it comes to working hours. This is especially important when it comes to sending work-related emails or scheduling meetings after hours or during weekends.
This said, pay attention to employees who work long hours or on weekends, or those who haven’t used any PTO in a while. All these workers are in danger of slipping into burnout and need your immediate attention. Advanced solutions like PC monitoring software can help you gain a better understanding of how your employees work.
Apart from tracking their attendance and time spent at work, this app will record time spent on different tasks and projects, websites, and tools. This data will show you whether they are overwhelmed with tasks and projects. Or that they spend too many hours on unnecessary meetings. Your employees may accept more tasks that they can take because they succumb to a “yes culture.*
Whatever the reason for spending excessive time at work may be, you need to put a stop to it if you don’t want your employees to become disengaged.
When you identify over workers, offer them relief by redistributing some of their workloads to team members with fewer tasks in their pipeline. Also, encourage them to stick to set working hours and turn off notifications on Slack or work emails after hours or on weekends. In this way, you’ll show them that you put their work/life balance and well-being before results and eliminate motives for quiet quitting.
Ask Employees about Future Plans
Instead of being judgmental and extending harsh critiques to your disengaged employees, try talking openly about their future plans. In this way, you can turn the course of the conversation by showing genuine interest in your employees and their career path.
If your employees want to develop further in their current positions but don’t get sufficient training and guidance, help them by offering additional learning opportunities and support. Also, they may feel stuck in the role of a sales agent when all they want to do is design web pages. If this is the case for disengagement, make it possible for them to advance laterally by changing teams and getting the support needed to thrive in new roles.
However, if you find out that your quiet quitters dream about starting their food delivery app instead of advancing in their current role of project manager, you can recommend a different role in which they would feel more fulfilled.
The bottom line is that open and honest communication is the key when you work with people. This conversation may be the only incentive they need to get back on track or to verbalize their true career goals and pursue them either in your company or somewhere else.
Check-in With Your Unmotivated Employees
This is something you need to do when the first signs of lower motivation appear. For example, your previously accurate and engaged employee may have started to run late for weekly meetings or skip them altogether. This is when you need to check in and find out whether something happening in their personal life is preventing them from being highly engaged in their work.
But if you want this method to work, first you need to have a trustworthy relationship with your team members. Because employees will open up and talk about personal struggles only when they believe managers won’t use these issues against them.
Also giving and receiving detailed and objective feedback can be a key to creating a psychologically safe workplace where you and your employees alike can share honest, data-based opinions about performance. This said information collected via monitoring software for employees can paint a clear picture of someone’s performance, focusing on both strengths and weaknesses. When you allow your employees to access their monitoring data, you can help them better understand their soft spots, so that they can work on improvements.
Furthermore, you’ll give them the opportunity to talk about the underlying reasons for disengagement and quiet quitting. Most importantly, you’ll show them that you’re a transparent and ethical leader who can be trusted.
