Signposts on the road to employee disengagement
Every organization knows that an engaged employee could make wonders for the team they associate with. It is easy to know the difference between an apple and orange but not between a ripened and semi-ripened apples or oranges. Which mean, to identify the engaged and disengaged employee, especially in a transition state is quite important before it hits the bottom line.
When I recently visited one of my friends home and commented that his son has grown tall in three weeks he replied to me with wonder “Is it?” This is the case of most of the grown and growing organization when I said the engagement level has dropped down in a span of 3 months, they wonder. Even trained eyes miss the views often. In my interaction with a leading auto component manufacturer, the disengagement of shop-floor employees are felt when the off-specification product generation climbs tall, despite tried and tested quality system in place. So before asking the question what stifles the engagement and drive of the employees and thereby the teams? Maybe the leader ought to ask other pertinent question, whether I have diagnosed the declination of the employee engagement before eruption? This blog post outlines some determinants of employee involvement.
- Lack of Excitement: Not necessary for a new work, a routine duty call would have a discounted quality when delivered by a disengaged employee.
- Initiative – What it is? These employees would not show any interest towards new initiatives. Their five days of the week is so much centered and focused on the weekend, but not on the new thoughts.
- Break the rules: Quite often they miss the deadlines and mess up the commitments.
- Status-quo is the mantra: They never envisage their professional development. Ask them about next three years professional plan or growth target in the next 10 years. You would get a nebulous answer.
- Self-centered: “Helping others” is a rare commodity for them. Disengaged employees are not happy about the place and tasks, then how could one expect them to help others.
The above pointers are few but the most prominent traits that could reveal that they are on the road to “complete-disengagement”. A leader shared his experience, when a high-flying executive handling a global multi-cultural team, lost the involvement due to unknown reason, the organization paid a price of 2% of the market share. As a popular adage, prevention is better than cure, employee disengagement should be prevented rather than curing with a hefty price as high as 2% of the market share. Disengaged employees prove detrimental to the growth of an organization.
Precede helps to diagnose and inculcate better traits in the team, thereby powering your organization to growth.
