From inept bosses to poor job support, we’ve watched as the staff from
The Office have become disillusioned with their roles within the organization. Today’s employees can relate.
When your company notices that some employees may be less engaged than others, it’s really important to look for the root causes. Much of the time the issues that may be causing employees to become distanced from their roles can be solved.
Not every employee will have the same reason for their lack of investment in their roles, but when you know several of the most common reasons for it, you may be able to head it off before it begins.
Two Types of Employee Disengagement
Gallup examined the role of employee engagement in the workplace and determined that there are three levels of rating an employee’s engagement.
First, there’s
engaged. That pretty much speaks for itself. Dwight Schrute is Dunder Mifflin’s poster boy for an engaged employee.
Then, there’s
not engaged, which is the category that Gallup found most workers fall into. Not engaged employees are what people today may consider “quiet quitting.” They don’t mean any harm to the company, but they draw a firm line around their responsibilities. They do their jobs, but that’s it; they clearly separate work and home.
You could say that almost all the office workers at Dunder Mifflin are not engaged.
The final category is
actively disengaged. These employees are demonstrably unhappy with work and seem determined to infect everyone with their misery. Ryan the temp is the perfect example of this type of employee. He seemed harmless enough in The Office, but in real life is terrible for business.
Gallup projected that 14% of employees are engaged, 71% are not engaged, and as many as 15% are actively disengaged.
Now, let’s look at come of those causes.
Lack of Purpose or Meaning
It’s challenging to put a lot of yourself into your work if you don’t feel connected to it or passionate about it. However, when employees are passionate about the job they do, the role they play within the organization, or even about the company itself, deep and meaningful engagement is a natural result.
A sense of being unfulfilled is difficult to process. Most people can’t fake it very well, and it becomes clear that they don’t feel connected.
Sometimes, an employee may have particularly good feelings toward the company and the work they do for it, but instead, they may feel like what they do isn’t important enough to the organization's success. When that happens, it can become an existential crisis; why bother to continue putting my best efforts forward if it really doesn’t matter?
No Career Development
A lack of professional development could contribute to feelings of being unfulfilled or bored. Without guidance for an employee’s next career steps, they may begin to flounder. However, placing a focus on career development can provide goals and motivation for employees.
Not all, but many employees crave job advancement and the challenges that come with it. For example, 87% of millennials in one survey admitted that professional growth was very important.
So, when an employee is interested in developing career goals but doesn’t see any path forward within the company, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll disengage. Why should they invest themselves if there is nowhere to go?
No progress in sight creates a feeling of stagnation. Unfortunately, employees who feel this may ultimately look elsewhere.
In The Office, Dwight was consistently craving career advancement. He tried to claim the title of Assistant Regional Manager at every opportunity, though that was never official. Who knows? If he’d been able to advance his role within Dunder Mifflin, the office might have been more productive overall because he might focus more on his work.
Lack of Communication
As in any productive relationship, communication is critical. Without it, it’s very easy to misunderstand so many things. A work relationship needs the same kind of nurturing.
Unfortunately, only 15% of employees think their companies do a good job of communicating. Yet, there are things that every employee needs to hear, and it might be simple to overlook these needs when they aren’t directly in front of them.
Employees crave explicit explanations of what expectations are. Otherwise, they will do their jobs, hoping they are doing things correctly. It’s very stressful to be unsure if your work is meeting company standards.
Poor Leadership
Leadership plays an outstanding role in employee engagement. In fact, management factors into 70% of an employee’s engagement level. So the effectiveness of your management team could indeed mean sink or swim for your employee satisfaction!
This applies to all levels of leadership. It encompasses middle management, to whom your employees directly report, all the way up to the executive level.
It’s easy to see how their direct manager can affect an employee’s performance. This person is somebody you deal with on a daily basis. If you don’t have a good relationship with them or don’t feel supported and respected, of course you might sour on your role.
Michael Scott, everybody’s favorite regional manager of the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin, is an excellent example. We all loved to laugh at how cringey we was, but perhaps we should have been feeling sorry for his employees instead. He knew no personal boundaries.
How can high-level leadership cause disengagement? A lack of strong leadership is one reason employees might not invest in their roles within the organization. They won’t have faith in the company’s staying power if they don’t trust leadership to run the company well.
Feeling Unappreciated
You could file this under good communication, too. Employees need feedback and, perhaps more importantly, positive recognition. Employees who work hard need to know their work is appreciated. Otherwise, why will they continue going the extra mile when just the bare minimum will suffice?
Appreciated employees are 80% more motivated to work hard. And employees aren’t necessarily conscious that they need this recognition. Without receiving positive feedback, they may not know they are doing all the right things and may even assume they aren’t good at their job.
An employee recognition program would be ideal, but if that’s not in the cards, even just a verbal “thank you” or “attaboy!” will go far. You may not need to do an annual awards ceremony like the Dundees, but, hey, it could be fun!
Wrapping Up
Of course, there are other reasons why employees may step back from their responsibilities. Sometimes, unfortunately, they just may not be a good fit for the organization. However, most of the time, companies can boost engagement with some conscious effort.
