What happened to John?
Turns out, that’s an expensive question.

If you’re like me, the older I get, the more I seem to worry about sleep – or more accurately, my lack thereof. Often the cause is ruminating on various work problems.

John was an ideal young rising star: eager to learn, asking great questions, and taking every opportunity to meet people, develop relationships, and enhance his skill set. His work was rapidly improving, and he participated in discussions, often pushing back when he disagreed.

Lately, he has changed. John is mostly quiet and seems less engaged. He is often late to work. He doesn’t look for ways to improve and rarely comes in to discuss edits on his documents, preferring to simply make them and email back and forth. John is eager to agree when asked for feedback and, when asked how he is doing, says nothing is wrong. What the heck, John? What happened?

Can you picture anyone like this on your own team? If you can, don’t worry. You are not alone. You have someone or some people who are “Quiet Quitting.” Many of you, who are much younger than me and more TikTok and social media-savvy (a low bar on both counts), may think “Quiet Quitting” is a new concept. It is not, though it is a fantastic name. While Quiet Quitting is a new term, the phenomenon is not new. Research on disengagement and “burnout” predates social media by three decades.

Forget going the extra mile; these are team members who come to work every day but don’t perform at anything close to their abilities. They are “going through the motions” and performing so minimally that they hurt morale and are incredibly expensive.

The $1.9 Trillion question…

If John’s disengagement sounds scary, it is: it cost US employers an estimated $1.9 trillion in lost productivity in 2023, according to a Gallup Organization study. Thanks, John!

In fact, their meta-analysis of over 183,000 businesses further showed:

1. 33% of employees were actively engaged.
2. 50% of employees were not actively engaged or were Quiet Quitting.
3. 16% were actively disengaged or Loud Quitting.

Yes, there is also “Loud Quitting”- those are the people who eventually leave. They are applying to jobs while working for you and represent part of the costs of future turnover for your organization. I will get into that, along with the concrete costs of turnover, in a future issue.

If you have noticed that your people who are working from home two or more days per week are less engaged than before, the Gallup poll also backs that up. It found that working from home was associated with a 15% higher likelihood of disengagement among employees.

Of course, many people wish to work from home, and for good reasons. The complexities of modern life mean it can be necessary and has certain advantages. It still doesn’t address the underlying “why” behind the epidemic of quiet quitting.

I don’t think those costs account for the lost sleep that we as leaders feel while trying to figure out how to motivate our people who are not performing as they could, should, and need to. It can be caused by internal factors, including outside-of-work stressors and significant life events, but it can also stem from burnout and often from things we, as leaders, can significantly and positively influence.

The Good News: There is a lot we can do to help our team members who are disengaged. First, we must understand the causes.

What employees need from us to loudly stay vs quietly quit:
(Fully engage and add to your bottom line and your culture)

Subsequent studies by organizations such as Great Places to Work and McKinsey, involving tens of thousands of employees, found that people want several things in their workplaces. These findings are consistent with our own work with law firms and corporations. Here’s what these and other studies, as well as our own work, point to. Overall, engagement improves when people feel heard and feel they experience:

1. Leadership: Specifically, authenticity, positivity, inspiration, and, most importantly, leaders who care about their people and put them first. Servant/Selfless leaders do well, according to McKinsey, and based on our own work with over 450 organizations.
2. Equity: People need clarity on what they need to do, learn, and accomplish to achieve promotions and raises. They need to feel fairly assessed.
3. Meaningful connections: It is harder to make these over Zoom. From an anthropological perspective, we are tribal and require human contact for emotional well-being. Working in the office most or all days per week matters, but with the flexibility for people to leave when needing to deal with life’s various issues. Have group events when possible and shared charitable activities.
4. Purpose: your team or your organization needs a shared mission and purpose. Discover what matters to your people and try to tie at least 20% of their daily work back to that purpose in a meaningful way.

This also requires hiring people who, in addition to having the skills and meeting the direct requirements of a position, share some of the organization’s values and have the attributes and traits to fit into your culture.  It starts with hiring and a great Integration plan and continues with the above areas of focus. I'll get into exactly how to do that in future issues - and in a book I'm writing on this topic.

Think about your team.  Do you have someone who seems disengaged or who used to be all in and isn’t anymore? What do you think has changed for them, perhaps in you or your own actions at work, or the environment? Feel free to email me at mollig@targetedlegal.com. Anything shared will be kept anonymous.

Finally, an informal poll, whose results I will share in a future newsletter.

How significant is quiet quitting on your team right now?

1. It's a real problem
2. I suspect it but can't confirm
3. We're mostly okay
4. Other: Describe

I would love to hear from you on what you are seeing.

Thanks for reading. Now, get some sleep.