Organizations spend a lot of time figuring out how to keep their employees engaged. What they fail to avoid are basic tenets that are real put-offs for high performing employees.
I just thought it would be worthwhile to put down the top ways to disengage employees.
- The ‘Culture’ at the workplace – Little things said or informal rules in the organization go a long way in employees forming an opinion about the workplace. Simple things like having to wait for the boss to leave or a casual comment like “Half-day today?” when someone is leaving at the official closing time goes a long way in forming the opinion in minds of the employees.
- The “dictatorial” managers – The best way to make an employee hate his/her job is giving them a “bad” boss. A “bad” boss could be defined as, but not limited to, anyone who:
- does not value your time
- expects you to be on his beck and call at all times
- treats you as his “flunk”
- shouts/abuses
- does not guide you and expects you to deliver what he ‘thinks’
- has no solutions when you go to him with a problem
- “Bad” work – A lot of employees, more so those who are fresh out of campus come to the workplace thinking that they would get ‘strategic’ work from day 1 without understanding what is going on at the grassroots. So any work you give them is not up-to the mark. This is not to say that there are cases where there is no realistic job preview at the selection stage thereby leading to dissatisfaction – both at the employer and the employee end.
- NO work – What is even worse than “bad” work is NO work. As they say, an empty mind is a devil’s workshop. Employees that have no work tend to spread their disgruntlement to others as well. They tend to waste their own time as well as that of others. Lot of employers tend to think that employees will get the message and leave when they have no work. However, I have seen employees who love it when they have no work and they are most comfortable in this setting.
- Poorly implemented PMS – A sure shot way of disengaging a high performer in your team is to keep giving him/her feedback throughout the year that he/she is god’s gift to the organization but conveniently forget this during the appraisal process. A high performer will most definitely leave if he/she feels that the ratings in the Performance Appraisal Process do not justify the effort put in relative to others.
- No Parity in Recruitment/Designation – I have seen a lot of organizations give a higher level/designation to newcomers. While this may be a good tactic to attract talent from the market, this can have disastrous consequences if you forget the existing employees in the organization. The reward for time spent in the organization has to be visible to everyone. If this does not happen, we can be sure of the attrition figures hitting the roof.
- Stagnant Career Path – If employees start to feel that they have hit a ceiling with regard to their growth path in the organization, you will see their performance dip with time, ultimately leading to attrition. This could even happen with a new manager coming in thereby giving the message to the team that they are not ready for the next step.
- Compensation – This is most often thought of as the first and the only way to keep employees motivated and engaged. I have deliberately kept it for the last because this is not true. While a threshold amount of money is always desirable, compensation is not the prime reason to leave any organization for most employees, unless it is a huge jump in the absolute amount. Compensation can serve as an effective tool for attraction – but most companies forget that as far as retention is concerned, compensation can only play a limited role.
So instead of giving flowers in the induction process (which is seen as a tool for engagement), let us try to get the basics right and try not to disengage employees.
