High levels of employee engagement are known to have an extremely positive impact on a workplace environment; productivity rises, employee turnover decreases and work quality is enhanced. However, when some employees feel dissatisfied with work or disrupted and disengaged because of events in their personal lives, this creates a negative ripple effect on work quality and work environment for individuals, teams and the organization.
Gallup’s survey finds that as high as 85 percent of employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work. With the pandemic creating even more challenges in the world of work than ever before, this number has a monumental impact on business outcomes. If your employees are unhappy with their job then this could harm the company’s productivity level and team morale. It’s important to recognize the signs of employee disengagement as early as possible so that effective action can reverse the trend.
Here are 5 signs that your employees are not engaged at work:
1. Social Withdrawal
If one of your workers was once a social member of the team but now has started pulling away, he or she is likely disengaged. If meetings or activities are optional, they will opt-out. This is especially troubling when you see this pattern in a team member who previously participated.
When employees prefer to spend time by themselves, miss work socials, and do not seem to be a part of the team anymore, it is worth looking into. Team withdrawal can be a sign of many things, including issues with colleagues, bullying or stress in other areas of their life. Demonstrate your sincere interest in the individual by connecting with the employee when you see this happening.
2. Reluctance to Voice Opinions
What’s the level of participation in meetings? How do people respond when you attempt to generate brainstorming or meaningful discussions? Is there lively, productive debates – or a deafening silence? When workers no longer feel connected to the company, they remove themselves from any non-necessary activities and deduct the amount of time they spend with the company members.
When ordinarily vocal, participative people stop speaking up, it’s rarely because they lack opinions. It’s because they lack enthusiasm or lack confidence that voicing their opinions will be safe, respected or acknowledged.
3. Increased Absenteeism
Absenteeism is expected in the workplace, and paid days off are often an employee benefit. Most people miss very few days of work. However, employees might begin to show their disinterest in the work and avoid being present at work. Often high absenteeism is a sign of other issues happening in the employee’s life. Work-life balance has a significant impact on absenteeism. Get to know your employees, understand their issues and concerns so that you can reengage them in the workplace.
4. Less Contribution
This is the most obvious sign that something is wrong. Is the problem demotivation, or something outside the individuals control? Understanding root cause of this issue will be critical to curb the loss of productivity which can spread to other areas of the company.
5. They Don’t Offer Feedback or Suggest New Ideas
When workers are engaged, they are open to brainstorming about how processes can be improved and how their company can be more effective. Usually, engaged employees are quick to offer their insight into why things might not be working as well as they could be and offer their ideas as to how things can become better- these employees are always sharing their thoughts in both private and team meetings.
Unengaged employees on the other hand, simply want to leave the meeting room as fast as they can. You won’t hear any constructive feedback from them but if they do speak up during meetings or brainstorming sessions, they may be playing “Devil’s Advocate” and be tearing other people’s ideas down instead of serving up some of their own.
There are various signs that your employee is actively disengaged at work, though each could be linked with different issues unique to your workers.
As a leader, it is critical to also look inside – how could you be contributing to this sense of disengagement in the workplace? Consider each sign of disengagement; see what is happening in the organization, and truly understand your employees to know when there are telltale signs that something is off in their world.
For more information on employee engagement, here are blog posts we have written in the past on similar topics:
