The trending subject of quiet quitting certainly received its share of media coverage this summer. My colleagues and I sensed there was something very familiar about it, and quickly realized it was a new term for the topic of a live streaming event our company hosted in 2012 called “Quit and Stayed.”
We described the problem as workers being “checked out”— doing the bare minimum to collect a paycheck and unwilling to use their discretionary energy for the benefit of the organization. The event was well attended by more than 5,000 registered viewers from 70 countries. Evidently, people found the topic as interesting ten years ago as they do today.
There are two schools of thought on why quiet quitting has once again become a widespread problem. Some folks blame the workers themselves for not going above and beyond what’s required. They say they are clearly lazy, they lack ambition and termination is the only solution. But others (like me) see it as a problem with leadership. We believe if leaders were more in tune with the needs of their team members and more focused on meeting those needs, quiet quitting would be far less common.
Here are two sobering numbers from Gallup research:
- 48 percent of American workers are either keeping their eye out for job opportunities or actively job searching.
- 51 percent of people who had voluntarily left their job said that in the three months prior to their exit, no leader — including their own — had spoken with them about their job satisfaction or their future with the company.
There’s no doubt in my mind that these two statistics are intertwined. The sad — but also encouraging — fact is that a great number of these people would have stayed with their organization if it had a relatively simple management strategy in place for employee engagement and retention: regular one-on-one meetings that included stay interviews.
1-to-1 is a powerful ratio
One-on-one conversations, for just 15 to 30 minutes every week or two, are powerful in their simplicity: They bring two people together so they can get to know each other as human beings. There’s really nothing more important than sitting and having a conversation with each person on your team. You are taking time to focus on that individual and to listen so they know they are being heard. Over time, these check-in conversations lead to higher levels of trust, more job satisfaction and genuine, sometimes lifelong, relationships between manager and direct report.
When I’m talking to a person on my team, I’ll usually ask them if there is anything I can do for them. They know I really mean it, and they seem to appreciate the question and respond well to it. This can often spark a comment about work or a question that relates to how they feel about their job, which can naturally turn the conversation to other topics that might be brought up as part of a stay interview.
Here’s an example: Let’s say your direct report drops a hint during a one-on-one meeting that things aren’t going as well with their job as they would like, and they are getting frustrated. Ask them what they need to be happier in their role, what could keep them with the company and what might cause them to leave. Listen carefully and take notes if necessary. Speak frankly with the person about how valuable they are to you, to the team and to the organization. Let them know you don’t want to lose them — it’s possible that something you say right now could be the reason the person decides to stay with the organization. Discuss next steps and schedule a follow-up meeting.
In their book, “Hello Stay Interviews, Goodbye Talent Loss: A Manager’s Playbook,” Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans share this cautionary message: “If you’re not yet holding stay interviews, you are guessing at what your talented people really want — from you, from the team, from their work. You could be guessing wrong. Stay interviews are just one of many strategies in a successful manager’s playbook. But they are absolutely foundational to engaging, motivating, recognizing and retaining talent.”
Remember: A common answer to the question “Why are you leaving?” in exit interviews is: “Nobody asked me to stay.” If people don’t know that you value their contributions and want them to stay with the organization, they’ll assume you won’t care if they leave. Make sure your people know how much you appreciate and value them. You don’t want a great team member to check out before you have taken the time to check in.
