How Bosses Can Address the Quiet Quitting Issue

As I was mindlessly watching YouTube clips, I came across some talking about employees quiet quitting. Naturally, I was curious to understand what quiet quitting is. At first, I thought it was about employees resigning without informing the management. It turns out quiet quitting is when an employee strictly works within a certain period. For instance, the employee will see no reason to stay at the workplace past 5 p.m. Also, the worker may refuse to pick up a call from work at night.

If you are a boss, you likely think quiet quitting is wrong. Why can’t my workers stay longer in the workplace, you might ask? However, it is important to remember that they do not own the company. Therefore, they will see no reason to work that hard. Also, employees may quiet quit due to inadequate compensation or poor management. However, there are five things bosses could do to prevent people from quiet quitting below.

Encourage Open Communication

As we have seen, there are various reasons why workers quiet quit. To find out why they are doing so, it becomes necessary to have a discussion with them. You could do that by holding a meeting or letting workers use the suggestion box. When you listen to your workers’ reasons for quiet quitting, you may be tempted to be hostile. For instance, a worker may criticize your leadership style. Rather than lose their temper at them, see the worker’s feedback as a chance to improve.

After allowing the workers to mention their concerns, ensure you make the effort to address them. If you do nothing to address the concerns, you meeting them would have been a waste of time. Also, the workers will continue quiet quitting if they notice you are not making the effort to help them.

Improve Work-Life Balance

Let’s face it; if some of us became bosses, we would make workers work for very long hours. The more they work, the more your company will receive profits, right? Unfortunately, overworked employees tend to be less productive. First, they will be too tired to do any work. Another problem is that they will be unable to concentrate at work due to work-related stress. To avoid work-related stress from overworking, the employee will quiet quit.

There are many things you could do to improve work-life balance. First, you could encourage employees to take coffee breaks. Typically, a coffee break lasts 10-15 minutes. Besides allowing you to de-stress, they allow you to strike up conversations with your colleagues. Next, you can encourage your workers to go for a vacation. By going on a vacation, the worker can de-stress by participating in hobbies they enjoy and spending time with their families.

Recognize and Reward Achievement

Some workers quiet quit because of feeling unappreciated at work. Imagine you are a worker who has helped your boss retain three customers who threatened to work with another organization. Rather than acknowledge your efforts, your boss returns to his/her office like nothing happened. You will see no reason to continue helping your boss if they cannot acknowledge your efforts. Instead, you will vow to let other workers handle difficult clients.

As the boss, you should always recognize every achievement your employee gets. You could do that by thanking them. Also, you could reward your employees with a salary raise or promotion. By recognizing your workers, you will notice a surge in productivity. That is because your workers will begin to work hard in the hopes of you acknowledging their efforts.

Provide Opportunities for Growth

At some point, workers expect to be promoted in some way. For instance, a front-office secretary may hope to become the CEO’s executive assistant someday. Unfortunately, some companies do not promote good workers. However, it is not always out of malice. Sometimes there are no promotions for them since other long-time employees are still around. Conversely, some employers want to spend as little money as possible by not promoting some workers. However, employees will see no reason to put any effort if they are always going to stay in the same job position.

Besides promotions, employers can have training programs for workers at the workplace. These programs equip employees with the knowledge and skills to become better professionals. Once these workers employ their knowledge and skills properly in the workplace, the employer will likely promote them. Some training programs to consider, include sales, compliance and leadership training.

Regularly Assessing Employee Engagement

Some employers do not care about their workers as long as they are raking in profits. They usually lock themselves up in the office. Unfortunately, distancing yourself from employees prevents you from knowing some of the problems they may have. As a result, your employees will quiet quit depending on what issues they have at work. To assess your workers, you could do employee surveys. Surveys help organizations to understand the worker’s level of satisfaction at the workplace. By understanding their satisfaction levels, the management can devise ways of keeping workers happy.

Sometimes surveys may not give you a true picture of how a worker is feeling. A worker may claim they are satisfied, yet they are not. That is why you can also consider doing one-on-one interviews with them. If a worker claims to be satisfied, you will know that by observing their gestures and facial expressions. Therefore, interviews allow bosses to have candid conversations with workers. As always, the boss should be able to accept criticism.

Conclusion

To stop workers from quiet quitting, you should make the workplace favorable. However, your workers may still quiet quit despite following the steps in this listicle. Sometimes, a worker may be experiencing personal problems at home. As a result, these tactics may not specifically address such issues. Also, it is natural for people to do it to rest or see their family members. Therefore, workers should not be vilified for it.

However, as the boss you should differentiate quiet quitting from laziness. If a worker leaves the office three hours before closing time, you should be firm with them. While being firm, you should try to understand the reasons behind what they are doing.