Coming back from Quiet Quitting & the Great Attrition

What is happening ?

Quiet quitting is the phenomenon where employees mentally leave their job without formally resigning.???It occurs when employees disengage from their work and cease to be productive but continue to collect a paycheck.

Then there’s the Great Attrition where employees seek flexibility and quit their jobs in droves, taking time to tend to their personal lives or take temporary career breaks.

Several studies have shown that 20-50% of the workforce are practicing quiet quitting with a tremendous negative impact on companies.???According to?Gallup?only 36% of the workplace is engaged, and 64% are merely going through the motions.

According to an October 7th, 2022, NPR report, American labor productivity is down 4.1% on an annualized basis, the biggest decline since the government started keeping track of the number back in 1948!!!

So the warning signs have been blinking red for a number of years and few even noticed???The usual ‘solution’ to this whole issue seems to have been to just add more headcount. Talk about an expensive productivity bandaid.

Well, now it’s the turn of everyone to pay the piper and we have seen layoffs starting late 2022.??This has hurt morale and performance at companies, teams and individuals.

Why is this happening???

Is this a new phenomenon or just a new label for something that’s been around before? Well both!

What’s the same is the end result.??Employees disengaged with their company and putting in minimal efforts at their jobs. What’s different are some factors are new and we’ve not faced them in the last few decades so some solutions should be different.

At its core, we can look at supply & demand of labor causing several things to be accentuated.?

At a November 30, 22 speech by Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell he blamed most of the labor sort-fall on premature retirements, long covid, and unexpected deaths among working age people.?

Recently, US. Group Life Insurance Benefits payments increased 20.7% in 2021!?

Its clear that, as the generations grow older, the number of potential younger workers are significantly fewer than previous generations.?

There is also a growing trend of many younger Gen Z workers being disillusioned and burnt-out with their companies, their jobs, their co-workers and managers.

However, are Gen Z employees really that different for the generation of the 60s?????Don’t they share many of the same qualities and wants???More flexibility, more socially conscious, more sensitive about their free time etc.??I can’t be the??only one to remember the workers from the 60s?????

Perhaps some of their disillusionment comes from how companies are structured, how they are managed and the type of work they do. I believe that the younger workers, like everyone else, want to do something meaningful and also be successful.?

The fact we have quiet quitting and attrition at such high level tells us there is obviously a mis-match between what employees expect and what they are finding at their companies. Remember, the earlier point from the Gallup surveys that say only 36% of employees are engaged.??Why is that and what can we do????????????????

What companies can and should do?

Companies should spend their time on the quiet quitting issue first.??My belief is if we can solve this problem, the second problem of attrition will largely take care of itself.??People resigned to leave will eventually leave regardless of how many retention payments, stock options etc. that you throw at them now.??

Quiet quitting is, at its core, an employee engagement and productivity issue playing out within the reality of a greying workforce and a labor shortage of younger workers.??

In most developed countries, there just aren’t enough younger workers to cover for all the voluntarily and involuntarily retired, older workers being shuffled aside or the sick or dead. That’s just the reality we have had in the US with the post war baby boom.

Given the shortage of labor, it’s no surprise that workplace leverage has shifted to the employees and disengaged employees can quiet quit because, quite frankly, they can. They can quit and find another similar job without that much difficulty or they are willing to sit it out for a period of time. Some may disagree but why else would companies be willing to live with 20-50% quietly quit employees, have 36% of engaged employees while at the same time bump up labor rates???Because they have to!

Lower productivity and higher labor costs are not a recipe for success.

The key principle going forward is companies must work to re-engage their younger workers (thus increasing retention AND productivity)??AND better utilize the available older workforce.??

1.?????Improvements have to be made with internal communications capabilities to encourage and improve??employee/management dialogue.?Employees have to understand how their work fits into the bigger picture and the impact they have on the organization's purpose.?

2.?????Another critical factor is to critically evaluate the quality of the existing middle layer of management. Are they part of the solution or part of the problem???Are they able to coach and give, receive feedback to help engage their team members and create a positive work environment? Are they capable or do they need coaching and training? If so, are training and development functions really helpful with this?

3.?????A key issue for both younger and older workers is flexibility. Flexibility is something mentioned high on Gen Z employees ‘wants’ and probably something older employees need as well.??Within the context of what has to be done, can the organization provide more flexibility with regard to work schedules? Perhaps consider 4x10 work days for 4 day a week work or 5 days of work but with flexible daily schedules? Or some thing else acceptable and desirable to both employees and management??

4.?????Performance management should also be done rigorously and fairly with the goal of help employee’s improve or, if not possible, identify potential exits.??No company can tolerate many poor performers for long and shouldn’t have to.?

5.?????Ensure compensation and benefits are competitive.??

6.?????Look at the various jobs within the organization.??Is it possible to provide more cross functional movements to increase opportunities and growth for employees???Do current employees really need certain knowledge and experience to switch functions???It's been said before, we should hire for attitude and train for skill. I think this applies here and now.?

7.?????Ensure that HR is not only about 'people' but about performance. HR should be more data driven to help management push for productivity and performance in addition to the more traditional roles.

Ask yourself these simple questions. If the answer is not ‘Yes’ to all of them, its probably time for a rethink.?

1.?????Is there someone in the organization responsible for culture and internal communications?

2.?????Is the quality of the middle management up to par at our company to work with both younger and older workers??

3.?????Within boundaries, can we offer some level of scheduling flexibility to the workforce?

4.?????Are we spending more time re-engaging our employees than focusing on those quitting the company?

5.?????Do employees?understand how their work fits into the bigger picture and the impact they have on the organization's mission?

6.?????Does the organization employ a good mix of all demographics within their workforce??

7.?????Is your HR function focused only on a ‘people first’ agenda or both people/ performance agenda?

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