What Makes a Great Employee Disengaged
The points listed below tell the story of how a bright-eyed new hire becomes a disengaged cog in the machine. Sadly, it happens all the time — but many leaders still struggle to understand why. These are the five biggest enemies of employee engagement:
1. Employees Don’t Share a Sense of Camaraderie
The average employee spends 90,000 hours at work over the course of their lives. That’s about one third of their life. In an average work week, it’s also more time than a person spends with their family.
A big part of what makes a great employee is the employees who surround them.
Given that humans are ceaselessly social creatures, it makes sense that the value of peer-to-peer relationships is so high. People with strong peer-to-peer relationships are happier, more creative, and more successful overall. Many people even cite workplace relationships as one of their biggest professional motivators. It seems a big part of what makes a great employee is the other employees who surround them and the quality of the relationships they share.
When employees feel like they belong to a team rather than a random cohort of coworkers, it’s a lot more likely they will stay engaged at work.
2. Employee Accomplishments Go Unrecognized
The problem begins when your employee is doing an amazing job but doesn’t feel like their work is acknowledged or recognized by peers and leadership. If a member of your team constantly exemplifies what makes a great employee, tell them. Employees aren’t mind readers, and even the most confident team members will start to question their performance in the absence of recognition.
What makes a great employee disengage? In part, a lack of recognition.
Lack of recognition is a major part of what makes a great employee disengage. Companies that invest in solutions to keep recognition simple, frequent, and meaningful have taken a proactive step towards ensuring that when an employee joins their team, the person’s potential grows — not diminishes.
3. Employees’ Sense of Purpose Has Vanished
Another big part of the answer to what makes a great employee disengage is a missing sense of purpose.
Particularly in today’s millennial-dominant workforce, people often seek positions at companies that provide them a platform to drive progress in the world at large. Millennials are famous for their desire to contribute to something bigger than themselves, but to some extent this craving for a higher-level purpose is alive within us all. It’s part of what makes us human.
A healthy sense of purpose is key to engagement.
Right next to relationships, mission is one of the most frequently cited major workplace motivators. More likely than not, your most enthused employees joined the team at least in part because they were excited to contribute to your company’s mission.
4. Employees’ Growth Feels Stunted
If you have nowhere to go, why keep going?
Key to what makes a great employee is chances to continually get even better.
Employees who feel like their careers have hit a dead end (at least as long as they remain in their current roles) will check out faster than you can ask, “what makes a great employee disengage?” That’s because the brain is a future-oriented organ, constantly hungry for progress. When employees don’t anticipate meaningful steps forward in their current role, they’ll reflexively grasp for opportunities elsewhere.
When you support employee growth, you enable employees to realize their full potential, push its boundaries, and then realize it again. Not only does this cycle of professional evolution promote engagement, it strengthens the talent embedded in your existing team. Companies that support employee growth exemplify the ideal win-win situation: growth is a huge part of what makes a great employee, and great employees are a vital part of what makes a successful company.
5. Management Has No Idea
This is, without a doubt, the biggest detriment to employee engagement of all. Managers account for 70% of the variance in employee engagement. Seventy. Percent. This massive influence suggests that in large part, the manager is what makes a great employee.
Think back to the other four factors that contribute to (or detract from) employee engagement.
1. Lack of Camaraderie
Team camaraderie is built through collaboration and peer-to-peer connection—both of which are well within a manager’s ability to support, as long as they know they need supporting.
2. Lack of Recognition
Recognition requires buy-in from senior leadership, and managers must lead by example for recognition to become an integrated cultural norm.
3. Lack of Purpose
Managers can also explain how team members’ job functions tie back to high-level company goals to foster the sense of purpose essential to employee engagement.
4. Lack of Growth
Finally, good managers work with direct reports to ensure they feel appropriately challenged, with plenty of opportunities for career growth and professional development.
Although it’s ultimately up to an employee to realize their own potential, it’s the manager’s responsibility to create an engaging work environment that enables them to do so. Engaged workforces are no accident. So rather than asking yourself what makes a great employee disengage, consider the many factors that contribute to keeping an employee challenged, appreciated, and connected at work.
References:
https://www.fond.co/blog/what-makes-a-great-employee-disengage/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/3-reasons-why-employees-become-disengaged-leave-stay-parker-cplp/