How can you tell if your staff are disengaged?

We are hearing much about employee engagement and the importance of engaged employees as a means of driving productivity at work.  But according to a new survey, only 10% of employees in Western Europe are engaged at work.

So how can you spot when employees are disengaged?

Missing deadlines

Employees who constantly make excuses for missing deadlines (or just don’t care) are likely to be disengaged and the time to deal with this is at the first sign. Don’t wait until the deadlines become critical – connect with your employees to ensure that they are on track, motivated and dedicated to meet the deadline.

Lack of communication

When an employee becomes withdrawn and stops sharing with colleagues and managers what they’re doing, it indicates a certain lack of engagement.  Just 12% of employees are asked regularly about what would improve their experiences at work. Simply by asking employees what makes a great employee experience can make a difference – not only can you find out how to design great experiences, but they’ll appreciate being asked.

Regular complaining

Every company has those who may be more vocal about things they don’t like than others, but recognising when an employee has valid complaints is important to understanding the culture in the organisation as a whole. Asking employees what matters most to them in the workplace is often a question that many businesses never ask.

Low quality of work

There could be a number of reasons why an employee may be consistently delivering poor work.

Ensure you’re supporting line managers to give clear, concise and time-specific feedback so that employees know what is expected, how they can step up, and what they need to do next time to address this.

Lack of ownership

‘It’s not my problem” is a common response from someone disengaged with their role and the company.

Finding things that they do care about in their role, even if it’s just one element, is key to changing the mindset of these employees.

Changing tasks among a team can often revive disengaged employees, with certain team members thriving do certain tasks that others really don’t get any enjoyment out of.