As the concept of “quiet quitting” gained attention over the last year, employers must now also be aware of the emerging trend of “loud quitting” or active disengagement at work. Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workplace report revealed that almost 20% of employees are “loud quitting.”
Though the number of disengaged quiet quitters is larger at 59%, the impact of loud quitters can have lasting negative effects on company culture and morale. Loud quitters exhibit behaviors that directly undermine the business, which can lead to a breakdown of trust, communication and eventually, direct opposition.
The presence of loud quitters can hinder the accomplishment of key goals, challenging the organization’s efficiency and its ability to recruit and hire new talent. To address this issue, leaders should consider the following strategies to prevent loud quitting from damaging their business:
Hire for Culture Fit
When someone is not a culture fit, they do not feel they truly belong with their team and, potentially, the organization. This misalignment can lead to discontentment. Dissatisfaction is not necessarily a performance issue but rather a poor culture fit, which can result in employee disconnection, interpersonal conflicts and loud quitting. HR should support employees who have a harder time integrating into corporate culture, but to prevent this mismatch, it is important to emphasize company culture during the recruitment process. Before the recruiting process even begins, organizations should define and promote their culture.
Engage Employees
Employee engagement is crucial for success among employees and the business, including the company’s culture. Among loud and quiet quitters, as many as seven in 10 employees may experience some degree of disengagement at work. Preventing loud quitting becomes realistic when organizations fully understand and embrace what drives employees to become fully engaged and productive at work.
To assess engagement levels, leaders should communicate with their teams. An anonymous survey each quarter can help measure engagement. One-on-one conversations with team members are another tool to get open and honest feedback, but anonymous surveys will produce more candid responses.
Develop Leaders
The path to loud quitting is a long road. The key is prevention, which ensures employees do not reach the point where they disengage and become loud quitters. Often, loud quitting is the product of a leader or manager relationship that has broken down over several months. During the course of this relationship breakdown, there are usually a number of opportunities to step in and redirect the current course and reengage the employee.
Because the manager-employee relationship is crucial, it is important for employers to prioritize comprehensive training and development for their managers. Preparing managers to work with various personality types and navigate difficult conversations is a valuable exercise.
Managers should proactively initiate a conversation at the first sign of disengagement. Doing so will help them understand the reasons and explore ways to reengage the employee. If signs of loud quitting are detected, managers should take immediate action before any harm is caused to the business. Time is of the essence to ensure the least amount of harm comes to the company and/or the company’s culture.
A loud quitter is not at every organization, so it is important to know how to keep it that way. Employee engagement takes effort, but if it is at the forefront of business conversations, along with finding people who fit the company culture, it will become easier to spot signs of discontent. These intentional efforts should lead down a path full of engaged employees.
Erin Lau is a director of service operations with Insperity, a leading provider of human resources offering the most comprehensive suite of scalable HR solutions available in the marketplace. For more information about Insperity, call visit www.insperity.com.