Employee dissatisfaction and disengagement can be detrimental to the company in many ways.
It can lead to lower performance, affect a company’s reputation and investor’s confidence, or create disharmony within teams or across departments.
When the employees are not working as one, there can be many tell-tale signs before matters get blown up. Let’s learn the signs and nip the issues in the bud before they escalate.
Lack of interest in team bonding
Planned an activity or meal and nobody is keen to go? This could be a sign of disengaged employees as they are not keen to spend them together.
One way to tune in to the issues is to have regular check-ins to learn about outstanding problems or grievances or look back on exit interviews, surveys, and appraisal feedback to pick out trends and develop actions to correct them.
Being quiet or unenthusiastic
Do you notice employees who were once chatty and participative have suddenly gone quiet?
Verbal communication is a strong clue as to how engaged employees are. The issue could be personal or work-related.
By creating a safe environment, team leaders can be one on one open conversations with members to find out more. By having these meetings, managers can show they care and make the staff feel their opinions matter.
Not following instructions
Another way for employees to show discontent is by not following rules or instructions. They can do it subtly by appearing late for events or isolate themselves from their designated teams.
If such behaviour is noticed, managers should reach out to the employees to clarify matters and find out if it was a snub or something harmless.
