But one thing to stop calmly is: not someone’s left actually stop. At least not yet.
So managers and leaders, especially those dealing with staff shortages, may see the concept less as a threat than as an opportunity to re-engage your employees by asking what really interests them in their work and letting them prioritize their efforts accordingly. . And at the same time to better prioritize what is essential for teams to do and what not.
“It’s on [managers] to truly and authentically understand where people come from,” said Simone Ahuja, Fortune 500 strategic advisor focused on driving innovation. [supporting] innovation is … radical prioritization by employees and managers and leaders.”
Consider possible origin
There is no universal reason why anyone should stop silently.
Perhaps they are experiencing burnout – which affected many people during the pandemic.
tell your boss having a burnout can be scary…and pointless because managers will often say they’ll see what they can do, but then nothing happens, said Ashley Herd, founder of ManagerMethod.com and a former labor attorney and human resources manager.
So quitting quietly can be an employee’s way of “taking control and having boundaries,” Herd said. “Managers should be concerned if their expectation is that people are constantly doing their best. No one benefits if you have a burnout.”
Or maybe someone chooses to give a little more priority to their life outside of work than they used to or the “hustle culture” tolerates.
However, that doesn’t mean they don’t care about work, or that they won’t do it well.
But at the same time, Ahuja noted, an employee may not want to be fully defined by their job. After all, the pandemic and a series of other ongoing crises around the world have reminded everyone of how fragile life is and forced them to seriously rethink what they want to get out of it.
And of course there will always be someone who will quietly quit because they either hate their job, or aren’t suited to it and have to look for something else or get a new job. But they don’t want to lose a salary.
In each case, don’t assume anything about anyone until you find out more. “Assumptions always lead us astray,” Ahuja said.
Talk to your team as a group and one-on-one
By convincing your employees how best to achieve team and personal goals, while also giving everyone space for their life outside of work, this can go a long way in driving retention.
“Have a sincere question — people feel involved when they’re invited to a co-design process,” Ahuja said. “Ultimately, we all want to be in a sandbox that’s fun to play in.”
But to find out how it all works for everyone, a lot of open communication is needed. For example, don’t ask or claim that someone is quietly stopping. “It has a negative connotation for very valid feelings,” Herd said.
Instead, she suggested finding out how they did it, how they feel about their workload, and if they’re able to balance it out with everything else they’ve got going on.
And don’t just pay lip service to feel-good ideas — for example, that work shouldn’t be the only priority in people’s lives. Model the behavior. Be vocal about when you leave or take a day off or go offline to be with family, Herd said. And don’t send emails at all hours of the night.
It is also always a good idea to publicly acknowledge a job well done. Don’t limit the praise to employees who put in a lot of hours to complete a project – which, of course, will sometimes be necessary in every workplace. Do the same for employees whose work is consistently excellent and completed within normal working hours. And keep that as a good example for others to follow.
“Celebrate that,” Herd said. “[Ask] how do you do it? We would like to take that as an example.”
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