Quiet Quitting, the latest buzzword for employees who aren’t engaged, who do the bare minimum, and who, as we used to call it, “quit and stay,” isn’t a new problem and whether it’s worse now than in the past is debatable.
Nevertheless, the issue is an important one. How do you retain your employees and inspire them to be strong performers?
As business coaches, we work with hundreds of business owners in every imaginable industry. Our business coaches agree that leaders who inspire incredible loyalty and longevity in their employees all share an important quality – they genuinely care about and connect with each individual.
Here, we break these business coaches’ observations down into 25 specific actions. Enjoy!
- Genuinely care for your employees.
- Live out your care by getting to know each individual.
- MBWA (Manage by Walking Around) Stop and chat on your way in or out, or better yet, come out of your office and walk around asking questions and listening.
- Ask them questions about themselves… and really listen. Actively listen – smile, maintain eye contact, nod your head, and paraphrase.
- Get to know each person personally. View each as a unique source of knowledge. Ask them what kind of work is meaningful to them.
- When someone talks with you, put the phone in your pocket, on a shelf, or anywhere but in your hand and ask that others do the same.
- Provide opportunities to interact in person. Small talk while waiting for a meeting to start or while grabbing a snack in the break room about how your Dad’s surgery went or last night’s game can deepen relationships. Over time the business coaches agree – this deepens trust.
- Schedule events like bowling or meals that create face-to-face time for interacting.
- Reward small wins instead of waiting for the whole project or goal to be accomplished.
- Say “Good job!” at least 5 times a day.
- Hold daily huddles—a 5 minute meeting first thing in the morning to make sure everyone knows what the issues and focus of the day are and to see what questions people have.
- Foster a failing-forward culture where mistakes are not ridiculed but viewed as learning opportunities.
- Give employees input into setting work hours, work schedules, lunch times, and even where work can be done. Let them determine how work gets done, process improvements, work sequencing, etc.
- Give them input into the office/workspace environment: music, décor, foods in the break room and at the workstation, for examples.
- Give them input in the hiring of team members.
- Set goals jointly.
- Schedule a 2-4 hour team-building session with the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator so everyone can get to know one another better by knowing their types.
- Provide an extravagantly welcoming on-boarding to new employees and let existing employees help you do it.
- Communicate with people individually vs broadcast methods like email and bulletin boards.
- Recognize people’s contributions to encourage more contributions
- Provide “stretch assignments” or job enrichment opportunities outside the normal job duties, such as writing a recommendation, implementing a process improvement, leading a team, making a presentation, or training someone.
- Allow remote work.
- Discourage multi-tasking; allow for concentration on one task.
- Create a retreat space such as a picnic area.
- Maintain a clean, uncluttered workspace.
What successes have you had as a business leader in avoiding quiet quitting? Our business coaches would love to hear your advice.
