“Quiet quitting” is the newest trend sweeping the nation’s workplaces and causing untold drops in profit and productivity. Here’s the thing, though – it’s not new at all.
For those of you left who haven’t heard of quiet quitting, it’s a bit of a misnomer; it’s not a wave of quitting, but a wave of doing everything but. Employees who are quiet quitting are plodding through their jobs and trying to do as little as possible while still maintaining their position. They hate their jobs, but they have to keep them for the money. In other words, it’s active disengagement – a “trend” that’s been around for centuries.
That being said, there’s a reason it’s making headlines under a new name, and that’s its significant resurgence. Per Gallup, 18% of American workers are actively disengaged, which is the highest number that’s been measured in about a decade.
We can finally stop talking about employment statistics in the shadow of the COVID pandemic and remote work, which means this 18% number represents millions of workers that are just plain sick of the workplace. That also means the issue of quiet quitting can be solved the old-fashioned way: employee engagement initiatives.
We at HelloTeam know engagement, and we’re here to help pull you out of the quiet quitting rut your team may be experiencing. Here’s how to snap any disengaged team members back into a good mindset!
Determine where you stand
Every team has at least a little bit of quiet quitting floating around, but it’s always for different reasons. You can’t roll out a new employee engagement initiative without knowing exactly what you should be targeting. The two most effective ways to do this are pulse surveys and stay interviews.
Sending pulse surveys to your team gives them an easy avenue to express any dissatisfactions they have with your culture. Once you’ve gathered all the data, you can compare them against industry benchmarks to see where you’re falling behind – or you might just spot some alarming trends with the eye test.
You might want more specific testimonies than survey answers, however, and that’s where stay interviews come in. Stay interviews are informal conversations between a manager and current employee that can touch upon the best and worst aspects of their workplace and reasons that current team members may or may not be looking for ways out. It’s a proven strategy to fight painpoints and issues head on before they become even more pervasive within your culture. Pull up a chair for one of your most trusted employees and learn from a stay interview.
Give an Employee Incentive Program a shot
The #1 reason most people leave their jobs is a lack of recognition, according to Gallup. Recognition isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a necessity whose absence could damage your organization’s retention rates. Leaders must celebrate their team’s completed projects, personal milestones, little wins, and even birthdays/anniversaries in any way possible. Recognition builds a sense of community in even the hardest of times and motivates your employees to continue to strive for success.
That’s why you should invest in employee incentive programs! These programs help managers reward their teams with bonuses, gifts, or events for putting in exceptional effort on the job. Whether given to one worker or a whole department, the presence of distinct incentives will motivate your staff to go above and beyond to both gain recognition and receive that “something special” that’s waiting for them.
Studies have shown that incentive programs boost productivity by 25-44% while simultaneously solidifying employee engagement and retention. Give your teams what they deserve while giving your company the high retention rates it deserves.
Keep in touch with your team
For your team to be engaged with you, you should be engaged with them right back. Speak regularly with your employees, ideally with a weekly one-on-one system or some sort of regular check-in session. You get to hear updates on projects, give them guidance in any area they’re struggling, trade feedback, ask questions, and simply get to know them more as people.
A continuous feedback loop holds your team accountable while also fostering a healthy and approachable relationship between managers and their teams. This is especially crucial for your remote workers, since contact outside these meetings can be sparse and they’re more prone to fall into the quiet quitting mindset from home.
Keep employees informed
An informed workforce is a productive one. Sharing pertinent news helps give your team important context, inspires them to take action, and satisfies their need to be in-the-know alongside a transparent organization. By updating workers on the latest company news via a virtual dashboard or centralized news bulletin, leaders can ensure that their employees are getting all of the information they need to feel energized and engaged.
Make sure employees know their impact on the business
Quiet quitting becomes rampant in organizations when workers start believing their jobs serve no real purpose. This belief could be based on tasks a few positions spend their time on, or it could derive from a feeling that the company as a whole isn’t making an important impact. Never let the organizational zeitgeist reach this point – turn it completely around instead.
Developing a new company mission statement is a great solution to fixing that sort of discouraged culture. A mission statement tells people three things: why the business exists, what makes it different, and what its people stand for. When it resonates strongly with those who read it, it not only puts your company under a good light, but acts as a positive influence for your employees and justifies their effort.
When it comes to individual tasks, goal setting and tracking is an effective means of demonstrating their value to the cause. Seeing the physical results of their hard work is motivating enough to boost employee engagement on its own.
Go all-in for your remote team
No matter what kind of job a person has, when they work in person, they find themselves at a workplace alongside their colleagues. That’s just common sense. Why, then, isn’t it common sense for remote employees?
Creating a digital workplace for your remote team can single-handedly change their motivation and productivity through an increase in engagement and communication. A social community platform with employee profiles can mimic an on-site work environment and facilitate connections between coworkers that live on opposite ends of the earth, while hosting features like goals and meeting tools on the same platform. Make an impact on employee engagement by being one of the 67% of organizations that are making digital transformation a priority in 2022.
Speaking of digital transformation, we know a platform that can help with all of these initiatives: HelloTeam, the all-in-one employee engagement platform! Beat quiet quitting by watching HelloTeam in action here — and to set up a meeting with us, go here!