As an HR Strategist, when I first saw (observed) the ‘Quiet Quitting’ trend and the emerging conversations around it populating my newsfeed, I initially got a little annoyed. Who am I kidding? I had several eye roll moments! Much of what I was reading purported that on the heels of The Great Resignation (2021 trend), we were seeing employees ‘Quietly Quitting’ which, according to most posts, was a new trend. Essentially, when they’re talking about ‘Quiet Quitting’ they’re not actually referring to people silently leaving their jobs. On the contrary they’re talking about people remaining there in their existing positions while mentally checking out of the workplace culture. They are referring to individuals essentially becoming tenants of the workplace, occupying space, however, only doing what is minimally required from their job description. Quiet quitters will not accept any overtime or extracurricular projects and will barely interact with their colleagues.
But is this really a new concept? Not at all. It is a way of rebranding one of the symptoms of a phenomenon that has plagued organizations for years now: employee disengagement and/or presenteeism.
Believe it or not, presenteeism poses a far greater risk and can be far more costly to an employer then absenteeism. Read that again. A disengaged or mentally checked out employee is costing your organization on average $3400 per $10,000 annual salary in lost revenue and production. That is not even taking into account the cost of loss of morale, conflict, workplace safety incidents etc.
Quiet quitting is ultimately an outcome of unattended employee engagement. It is the result of organizations failing to provide the motivational drivers and workplace culture required to drive engagement and high performance.
Let’s consider that statistics show that one in four of your employees are currently shopping around for jobs with other companies. Now let’s talk about why: They are currently seeking opportunities outside of your company because their motivational needs are not being met or satisfied by the culture your organization is providing.
What can you do about it? Is there an antidote? YES! Start by checking in on your current state and performing a quick pulse check to measure and strike your engagement baseline.
Then map out what your existing employee experience looks like. To do this, put yourself in the shoes of a candidate at a job interview for a position within your company and draft a realistic end-to-end employee journey from that point on through to their eventual exit.
What is happening at each step of the journey. Notably, during the following key touchpoints in their experience: Interview & Hiring, Onboarding & Orientation, Training & Development, Performance Management, Position or Team Transitions, Exit.
Here are just a few questions to help guide you as you map out the blueprint of your current employee experience:
- What does our interview stage look like? Are we taking the opportunity to build momentum and excitement to attract candidates and persuade them to work for our company?
- How are we bringing them into our organization once they accept the offer? How long is our orientation and onboarding phase and what does it involve?
- What kind of tools and resources are we providing to facilitate the integration of new employees into our workplace culture and connections with their peers?
- Once they transition out of the orientation phase, how do we support the establishment of further growth and development goals and help them to continuously improve their skills?
- How do we convey our organizational vision, mission, values, priorities and objectives to our employees and how frequently do we transmit these cornerstone principles? Do they understand our why? And how they enable the achievement of it?
- What does our performance management exercise look like?
Once you have mapped out your employee journey and all of the existing practices associated to each phase of the experience, you can start to measure to which degree they integrate the 10 Key Motivational Employee Engagement Drivers. You can spend time assessing for example, whether or not you are using your interview as an opportunity to ‘pitch’ your organization to these prospective candidates. Are you keeping regular and consistent communications throughout the selection process from interview to offer as a means of providing candidates with a glimpse of the consistent and transparent communication they can expect when working with your company?
Next week’s instalment will be spent highlighting those 10 secret ingredients to the antidote. The 10 key features that, once weaved into every step of the employee journey will create the workplace culture where employees engage and thrive. Make sure to follow us to get the rest of the antidote recipe.
Are you experiencing a ‘quiet quitting’ trend in your workplace and looking for more tips and advice on how to pivot your culture and get your team to thrive, join our Thrive Hive or book a meeting with us!
