Disengaged Employees: 5 Signs Why This Happens

Are you worrying about disengaged employees? Wondering why some employees might not be engaging with their work?

It’s unfortunate but true – Your culture suffers when employees do not engage at work.

In fact, if your employees don’t feel engaged at work, you don’t just lose money. Your employee morale and work culture are also at risk.

Ultimately, it’s your job as a leader to engage your employees, make them feel welcome, and motivate productivity.

If you have disengaged employees, the first step you need to take is to find out why. Then, you act on the cause.

We gathered 5 common reasons why employees feel disengaged and uninspired at work, along with handy suggestions on how you can fix each problem.

1. Employees Don’t Feel Their Impact

In many cases, it’s impossible to show your employees what effect they’re having on the business. You can’t show them how their efforts directly affect success because it’s often a team effort.

But, if employees don’t see the value they bring, they can easily become demotivated. It’s no wonder that demotivation is one of the main causes of burnout according to the CDC.

Suggestions/Solutions

Find ways to show your staff what sort of impact they have, be it through sales figures or with KPI statistics.

How you demonstrate employee impact will vary depending on the type of business you run, but try to make it as personalized as possible. The more people feel they’re contributing, the more invested they are in the overall outcome.

2. A Lack of Feedback

Some employees are independent go-getters. Others need more guidance to function in their day-to-day tasks. But, every employee needs a certain amount of feedback to know that they’re on the right track.

If you don’t give them any feedback, they won’t just lose interest. They’ll also lose productivity.

As a manager, you do need to engage with your staff on some level in order to provide effective feedback.

Suggestions/Solutions

Since giving feedback can backfire as often as it helps bolster employee engagement, your best bet is probably to perpetually train and guide your staff. Feedback in the form of teachable moments can be very effective in keeping your staff engaged.

Remember that most tasks can be honed to make them easier, more efficient, more streamlined, etc.

3. Employees Don’t Feel Heard

No one knows the workings of your business better than your employees. While you understand the process they go through, they’re the ones actually doing it. They see problems, they experience situations that unaddressed in the meeting rooms and boardrooms of your company.

There are often very simple solutions to these daily problems and chores that your employees could voice to you. However, when they have no outlet for their frustration and they have no way to make suggestions and propose solutions, then they feel unheard and not engaged at work.

Suggestions/Solutions

A simple suggestion box may help fix this problem. An online suggestion box enables employees to make comments anonymously and to have senior management respond to said comments where applicable.

4. Poor Communication

This is a difficult one because it comes in so many forms. Even a poorly worded staff newsletter can cause upset for weeks, not to mention that some people interpret management styles very differently.

To some staff, a no-nonsense approach may be highly efficient, to others it may appear arrogant and rude. Poor communication becomes a bigger problem when you’re dealing with remote workers when you can’t gauge your staff’s reaction.

Suggestions/Solutions

The best suggestion for this problem is to make workplace communication effective. Easier said than done, right?

Try to be more concise, try to keep things clear, try to take comedy and sarcasm out of the mix, and always be consistent.

Communication problems will always lessen over time if you’re consistent in the way you apply the rules. For example, if you forbid bad language, then never let somebody slip a curse word by without being called on for it.

5. Problems With Employee Wellbeing

One of the fastest ways to ensure your staff is not engaged at work is to disregard their safety and wellbeing.

If you don’t make an effort to make the workplace safe (both physically, mentally, and emotionally), you can’t expect positive employee engagement.

Suggestions/Solutions

The obvious solution to this problem is to simply care about your employee’s well-being.

The health and safety aspect is pretty set in stone these days since modern laws and industry policy make it difficult to put people at physical risk. However, you shouldn’t neglect people’s emotional and psychological wellbeing either.

For example, some people work overtime at the great expense of their personal happiness and without the expectation of additional pay. When you then force that person to come into work early to finish up somebody else’s work, it destroys that person’s motivation because they feel underappreciated and they feel as if the company doesn’t care about their discomfort.

Even something like a flexible working plan or a less punitive punctuality rule may help remove some of that discomfort for people. It may help people see that you have their best interests at heart.

A Suggestion Box Can Help Keep Your Employees Engaged

As a manager, it’s your job to keep your employees engaged. And that means listening to their concerns, caring about their wellbeing, and giving them the tools they need to succeed.

And the easiest way to implement all these changes is to get an online suggestion box like Suggestion Ox.

Employees can anonymously provide their feedback through an easy-to-use platform. Then, you can address their concerns and clearly see areas of improvement.

The best thing about a third-party suggestion box is that it builds trust. Employees can speak their minds without fearing repercussions. And you get an honest view of the company without the pressure to respond personally.

Try it free and experience the benefits of employee feedback, and see how it boosts engagement in your team!

Suggestion Ox has turbocharged the suggestion box. Over 60,000 companies, associations and government agencies use their anonymous online suggestion box to gather actionable employee feedback, gain customer insights or empower whistleblowing and reporting.