The question of how to deal with disengaged employees might sound scary. When you do the right things it is not hard to deal with disengaged employees. It’s tiring when a team member is psychologically absent. In certain circumstances, this individual just does the minimal necessities. How can we be sure that this is happening? What can be done to solve the issue when it may simply be a brief crash? And when is a long-term issue a problem? And how can you ensure that this person’s lack of drive does not harm or irritate the other team members?
Gather evidence
First of all, you have to be sure that this employee is disengaged. Then you can ask how to deal with disengaged employees. Is this person not caring at all about the deadlines, not feeling responsible for their colleagues? Does it take ages for them to send a basic reply? The list goes on, to see more of this just click here. We talked about how to identify a disengaged employee in one of our previous posts.
Offer Support
After you have a better knowledge of the underlying problem, you must collaborate with the person to discover a solution. Inquire about how you may assist her. The solutions will change based on which ones I am the grounds for sharing. For example, the issues can be related to:
Personal Stress
If personal stress is the cause of the disengagement offer flexibility. When an employee is “taking some time to solve personal problems” it is necessary to be delicate. If an employee has if we can say, family-related problems offer support and understanding. Be kind and ask them about their problems as their HR professional or team leader. You can ask them what would be the most useful for them to engage them back to work – remote work? timetables reduced? responsibility reduced? –
You have to also find a way to tell the rest of the team that this employee is taking some time for themselves without breaking the privacy and confidentiality of the person. It’s best when you play your card open and directly ask your employee: “Would you be willing to share this information on a limited basis?”.
Lacking Skills Might Be the Cause
If disengagement is due to a lack of skills, you can help them and offer them a perspective where this is a field to improve themselves at. Offer training. “ When the type of the work changes and employees come and go, it can be demoralizing also for some people to admit that they are lacking skills and they might get stuck there disengaged. They struggle and feel they were doomed to fail, so they remain disengaged. Ask your employee how the changes in the working environment have affected their ability to perform their tasks. It could be that their skills, interests, and abilities are not more in line with their responsibility anymore. In this case, you can offer support in the form of continuing education courses or individual coaching. You could also think of redistributing responsibilities.
Maybe They Just Don’t Know?
How to deal with disengaged employees when they’re unaware of their behavior? Proceed with caution if the person is not aware of their actions. Due to “limitations of self-awareness,” the employee may simply be disengaged. A bell alarm might be used to draw attention to a change in behavior. On the other hand, their lack of engagement might be a sign of a deeper and more serious mental condition, such as depression. Because “there aren’t many instances when a manager should pry into an employee’s personal life,” you don’t have many alternatives. Provide a sympathetic ear and offer to assist your employee in locating any essential aid.
Be Transparent with Your Team
In addition to speaking with the individual in concern, contact the team. “Spot the elephant in the room. However, nobody should be ruled out. Be kind and professional. We suggest understanding what’s more bothersome – lost time, missed deadlines, or cranky attitudes and then addressing these issues widely across the team. Establish expectations. Explain the requirements.
Be Patient with Your Team
Rekindling the spark in a disengaged employee will not happen overnight, according to us. Unfortunately, that may not occur at all. Just because you speak to your disengaged employee does not ensure that they would reignite. If the probable solutions you have applied don’t appear to work, it might be an indication that winds of change are there. Sincerity is required. Explain the organization’s aims and be clear about your worries regarding their performance. Hopefully, you will find a middle way with this employee. If not, you may offer to assist him in finding new employment as a show of goodwill.
What To Do
- Ask yourself: which are the work criteria that this individual does not meet?
- Exercise empathy. Communicate with your staff with real care and interest. Make it clear to everyone that you genuinely want to help him.
- Inform yourself about available support systems, such as mobile employee experience platforms which may assist in reconnecting your employee.
Do you know that you can easily ask for a demo of the Empactivo all-in-one end-to-end employee experience platform just by clicking here?!
What Not To Do
- Take into count that your employees could be burnt out from working in an unsustainable way. Don’t let them burn out in such a way.
- To be too tolerant of one situation negative. When an employee loses control this could be because this role is not right for them.
- Compare the disengaged employees’ behavior without linking it to a level of understanding