“Quiet Quitting” is not a new phenomenon, nor is it a passing fad.
Quiet Quitting is the conscious, collective desire to rebalance work and lifestyle. It is the motivation for people to do work that matters to them, to enable the lifestyle they want.
12 months ago, research and advice on burnout and its prevention was the hot topic. Today, we are seeing Gen Z (among others) providing their own solution.
This is a re-negotiation of boundaries, in real-time.
This is also an opportunity. Organizations have the chance to actively engage in this renegotiation and make it work for both parties.
Do not be fooled, your people are already at the table and talks are ongoing, quietly. Are you listening?
What are your options?
Lead with mission.
“Organizational purpose becomes personal when the employee recognizes that their unique contribution furthers that goal. In other words, purpose becomes personal when a person is doing what they do best to further what they care about most.” – Gallup
The evidence that mission-driven organizations drive employee engagement, and create ‘ownership’ of an individual’s contribution to its success is unquestionable. What quiet quitting changes is the fact that before, companies could continue to just increase extrinsic rewards and many would stick it out and over-deliver. That option may no longer be there. Companies that don’t change to champion their mission are in danger of hemorrhaging talent and not being able to deliver for clients.
Leaders have until now, been able to opt-in or out of valuing the mission. Employees are taking that option off the table. It is no longer a case of being mission-led or not, but merely ‘what is your mission, how does the company embody it, and how can I be part of it?’
Facilitate autonomy
Internal systems and processes had to be adapted overnight to cater for home-based working. The remit of HR teams was twofold:
- Make it work
- By tomorrow/yesterday
We found technical solutions and over time, best-practice for how to build hybrid culture evolved. Yet, the instincts of many leaders to get workers ‘back to work’ demonstrates a lack of awareness – the genie is out of the bottle.
Stop trying to control workers. Support them and empower them. To do this, you must build hybrid ecosystems to make communication, connection, and collaboration easy and suitable for the diverse needs of your workers.
Matt Mullenweg has long spoken of the ways Automatic (parent company of tech company WordPress) has adopted ‘distributed working.
One example of how they have built inclusive working practices is allowing time after online huddles for people to formulate their thoughts and respond to questions. This alleviates the bias for those that speak up in meetings to be heard and those that feel less comfortable doing so, feeling left out and their contributions unheard.
Make it easy for your people to do their best work and you remove frustration and disengagement while improving efficiency.
Attract & Reward
Company mission and purpose is a thread to run throughout your business. It is a key reason people will choose your company over another and a key reason for them to stay.
Your mission should feature in your job ads, interviewing process, and ‘appraisal’ processes and allow them to have a say in what rewards they can expect for delivery against goals.
Gone are the days when employees simply trade time for money, they want to be engaged, fulfilled, and make a contribution. Aligning their values to the company mission will inspire loyalty and productivity far beyond the old strategy of dangling a carrot in front of them.
Connect the dots and thread your mission throughout your talent process.
Love your Managers
Data shows employee engagement levels can be attributed as much as 70% to their relationship with their manager. Your people managers have the greatest direct impact on the delivery of projects and the engagement of staff.
You simply must support them to lead themselves, and lead others in line with the company mission but also its values. Your Managers are the catalysts for culture adoption and regulation.
Remote working has only made this more complex, but understanding basic, actionable psychological principles will help them facilitate safe, engaging atmospheres that promote collaboration and contribution.
So, where do we start?
What you need to do depends on a multitude of factors unique to your business. However, what is clear is that:
Mission matters
- Get clear on the impact you’re looking to achieve and why someone is going to want to give their best to help achieve it. It opens up a wider talent pool and organically incentivizes sustainably, beyond financial rewards.
Change is the one constant – so set up for constant evolution, not repeat revolution.
- Embed a growth mindset, sculpt agile systems and encourage innovation and challenge the status quo. Understand what business performance and people performance metrics to track to monitor stagnation and inform action steps.
A mission is lived through actions. A motto is merely a plan.
- So make a point of demonstrating behaviors that embody or express the mission of the business. This leadership will spread to others and drive those actions into the culture of your teams.
Get clear on your mission and how it should be lived throughout your organization.
- Assess what systems and training will be needed to bring it to fruition.
At Accelerate Change, we help companies find their purpose and thread it through their leadership structure, through their culture mindset, and desired behaviors, all supported by synergistic systems and processes.
It’s time to elevate your mission. Your business might depend on it.
