“This company is a piece of crap!” “Look how much they spend on photocopies, and they won’t give us a pay rise!” “My boss is a…!” You hear phrases like these in certain jobs and workplaces. Very often they come from resentful employees, people who have lost their motivation because they have not reached their goals even though they are convinced they are in the right, and in many cases they get lost among everyone else on the staff.
When the company is going through a bad patch, their complaints are harder to argue with, because the circumstances the company is living through make their grievances seem more obvious.
With all due respect, these employees are like a rotten apple in the fruit bowl. They are the ones whose personal grievances spread their disillusionment and lack of motivation to the rest of the staff. They count on leaving the company on very favourable terms once times are good again, even though they have poisoned the atmosphere.
There are five signs that reveal the hidden face of demotivated employees:
Lack of initiative
This is the typical employee who follows orders without asking for reasons or explanations. Nor do they suggest solutions or different methods that could make their work more efficient.
They act without getting involved, and they work simply to tick the box of being a good employee.
Indifference
Any new challenge leaves them indifferent. They work to orders without stopping to ask why they should do something. It shows in the way they handle their work processes: an obedient employee, but without the commitment to look out for what is best for the company.
Low productivity
They used to be the driving force of the company: involved in it and the hardest of workers. They were a reference for the rest of the staff because of the effort they put in. However, something has changed in the way they think. Although they consider that they still strike a fair balance between work and effort, they work with considerably less intensity than at other times in their working life.
They do things, they are physically present, but they don’t produce.
They undermine the team spirit
This is the worst of all. It is not what they don’t do or how they do it, but their critical, troublesome spirit that never offers solutions. Everything is drawbacks, obstacles and complaints. And the worst part is not how they feel, but what they pass on to their colleagues and the rest of the staff.
Someone who undermines the company’s work is making the business lose productivity. They hold back other people’s growth and manage to reduce their productive capacity.
Psychological, not physical, absenteeism
They are there and not there: present in body, with their mind in the clouds. They don’t take sick leave, they turn up for work every day and are extremely punctual, and yet their commitment to the job and to the company has gone. This situation could be described as emotional absenteeism.
Further reading
- Is there anything worse than absenteeism? Yes: presenteeism
- How to find happiness at work and keep your staff motivated
Featured image: alison e dunn, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
