Quiet Quitting Can Impact Your Customers
TeleworkPH
Published: December 5, 2022
Quiet quitting has become the newest trend. Employees flying under the radar so to speak, just doing the bare minimum.
What are the causes and how can we fix it?
When you think of an ideal employee, these three words pretty much sum it up: motivation, performance, and enthusiasm. This trio of traits covers everything that has to do with employee engagement in a company.
The problem is that an engaged employee is not necessarily engaged forever, right? And if employees lose motivation, this could affect how your company runs and hinder success.
Hence, the popularity of quiet quitting.
What is Quiet Quitting?
The trend towards quiet quitting has captured the imagination of a lot of working people off-late. It means, employees are “checking out” from work and don’t necessarily see work as the only central focal point of their life,
Instead, they look at the job and the monetary benefits attached to it as a means to make ends meet and not the primary purpose of life that requires that “extra” or “going above and beyond” investment of time. Quiet quitters believe in doing no more than their job demands and setting clear work-life boundaries.
Quiet quitting as a phenomenon started seeing more traction in the latter half of 2020. A true illustration of pandemic-induced effects, the WFH or remote working culture is a great contributor to this new trend. Almost two years of work from home or hybrid working has changed the work culture fundamentally, for good or for worse.
Why The Great Resignation is Happening
This followed by the phase of the Great Resignation just allowed people to re-evaluate their lives and workplace options, re-imagine alternative ways of doing work and rethink what they wanted from life!
The pandemic also led to the increased popularity of work-from-home or WFH. This accelerated remote working culture and these new working systems have definitely fuelled the rise of quiet quitting culture in more ways than one.
Even though convenient and cost-effective in many ways, WFH often results in blurred boundaries and therefore the risk of employee burnout. When people work in disassociated work spaces confined to the walls of their homes, relying on self-motivation, self-discipline, and concentration, it becomes really difficult to live and breathe such a life, day in and out.
The office environment offers lots of informal and casual collaboration opportunities that are hard to replicate at home. Only when employees enthusiastically involve themselves in their work and workplace, organizations are able to manage and build on important perspectives of workplace culture.
More importantly, this enables organizations to know their employees as individuals – their current life situation, personal ambitions and goals, the strengths they aspire to acquire, and the weaknesses they wish to overcome.
Since there is a huge demand for hybrid working and the WFH culture will only grow, companies need to find innovative ways of interacting with their employees, engaging and motivating them differently, and most importantly, communicating with them more effectively in more intentional ways.
The Millennials and Gen Z are not only reassessing the way they work but are also willing to turn down jobs and assignments which don’t align with their values. For them, the purpose is critical and they value those organizations that invest in employee welfare and mental wellnes
How to Increase Employee Support
The first corrective step requires managers to support their employees. Whether it involves managing the burnout risk or dealing with disengagement issues, managers need to sit at the helm of every conversation. This also requires managers to re-skill and upskill themselves and be fully equipped to deal with hybrid working environments.
Managers must invest in their team members and have meaningful conversations with them at regular intervals. They should look into their workload, and their career paths and help set some boundaries. This makes them feel someone cares about them, is excited about their development, and that they have opportunities to learn and grow.
Secondly, managers must encourage a culture in which employees are engaged and can see how their work contributes to the organization’s larger vision or purpose. This involves creating accountability both at an individual and as well as team level. An inclusive work environment that fuels continuous learning is always a plus one.
Thirdly, it is imperative that organizations listen to their employees across all levels and implement their feedback.
The fourth and most important point, managers should build trusting relationships with their employees. This results in the creation of a safer and more positive work environment that thrives on inclusivity and trust and motivates employees to continue to do their best.
Quiet quitting as a term might outlive its trend very soon but it stems from real problems that employees face every day. Organizations need to rethink their approach to work culture – accept that there’s a problem and proactively find ways to abandon it altogether.
Management And Quiet Quitting
If as a manager you are 100% confident about your leadership abilities, sit back and reevaluate your approach to getting results from the team. Make sure your team members feel valued and appreciated and encourage regular open and honest dialogues to set the expectations each party has of the other. This not only will help increase overall productivity but also establish a sense of trust in the organization.
On the other hand, the participation of employees in correcting this is equally important and supremely pivotal. It is easy to place the blame on the organization or managers for disengaged work environments.
But if employees don’t take conscious, discretionary steps to engage themselves and create a profound impact, they stand the chance to lose out on many things that can make a workplace enriching, engaging, and fun in the first place.
While there might be a handful of people who would have adopted quiet quitting as a result of biased or inappropriate behavior from their managers, many on the other hand are also grateful to have had those golden opportunities to work with leaders who inspired them to take those extra steps in the early stages of their professional journeys.
Quiet Quitting Killing Customer Support?
An unmotivated employee no longer makes their best effort at work. Instead, they limit their investment to only what is strictly necessary. They will not be one of those people who will willingly stay late to finish an urgent task or revitalize the company with a new idea or project that they thought of on their way home.
By domino effect, the demotivation of some hinders the goodwill of others because it slows down the pace of work and productivity.
When an employee lacks commitment, they do not have the same enthusiasm as a motivated employee. They will not be as effective in selling a product or meeting a customer’s needs. They will also be less rigorous about the quality of their work and less focused, which can lead to mistakes. This can seriously damage customer relations and the company’s brand image.
It is imperative for people at work to be engaged while enjoying their work. When employees feature high morale, they tend to be more productive, innovative, and creative. They are also more invested in the organization. On the other hand, low employee morale can cause subpar output, frequent sick days, and decreased productivity.
It can also be immensely contagious. Therefore, it spreads easily amongst other employees of the company.
The main problem with quiet quitting is that employees are ‘quiet.’ When the employee reaches a point wherein they quietly prefer fading from work, it is a major sign of dissatisfaction that should be looked into.
What is the cause of the change? How can the overall employee experience be improved? Is there something that might affect the employees? As you take time to listen, it is possible to identify as well as address primary causes.
Quiet Quitting Short Term?
Quiet quitting might appear to be a short-term trend. However, it stems from real challenges that employees face on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, as an organization, you should pay attention to it. It’s a good thing that at Telework PH, quiet quitting isn’t our choice of trend because we believe in employee empowerment and inclusion. We provide you with customer service dream teams that will bring you more customers and would go above and beyond by default.
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