Quiet quitting is one of the newest trends in the workplace. Fueled by the social media world and TikTok, this trend encourages employees to do the bare minimum in the workplace while cashing in on their paycheck.
According to the Center for Creative Leadership, “A lack of psychological safety at work has major business repercussions. First, when people don’t feel comfortable talking about initiatives that aren’t working, the organization isn’t equipped to prevent failure. And when employees aren’t fully committed, the organization has lost an opportunity to leverage the strengths of all its talent.” This, in turn, leads to employees quietly quitting their jobs and looking for validation and safety elsewhere.
So, why are we seeing this workplace trend and how can we ensure we keep our employees engaged, eager to work and stop them from silently disengaging from their job? Quiet quitting isn’t just a loss of productivity, it’s a loss of employee buy-in. At Flint, we recognize that employee engagement is part of what makes us great, so we work hard to connect with employees before they reach the stage of quiet quitting.
A flexible work-life balance
Depending on where I was at in life, my work-life balance as the lead of human resources for Flint Group has looked very different. When I started with Flint, I was dating my now husband. Since then, I have gotten married, built 2 houses, had two beautiful babies and went through a military deployment for my husband. Through each of those stages, Flint has showed up and given me the support and flexibility I needed.
Each of these milestones has given me great perspective into the many different life stages our employees encounter and how it affects their work life. Everyone deals with life events differently. My own personal experiences helped me appreciate that work-life balance is an ever-changing cycle and helps me better support our employees no matter what stage of that cycle they’re in.
Prioritize employees
One of our values at Flint is “Go Where You’re Needed Most”, and we take that very seriously. Whether that be working from home because you have a sick kiddo, heading out into a field in Iowa for a client event or taking a “What the Flint” day because your mental health is in a tough spot, we encourage our employees to do what they need to do and go where they need to go to be their best selves at work and at home.
In addition, we listen to our employees. For those employees who are not comfortable having those face-to-face conversations, we have set up other avenues for them to be able to express their ideas on how to improve our culture or our building and to express their frustrations. This is set up as a Teams channel that our entire company has access to. We call ours Disrupt Flint, and I encourage you to come up with a unique and inviting way to do something similar for your company. Employees have posted anything from using solar film on the exterior windows of our building to save utility costs, to installing a Diet Coke machine, to offering LifeLock as a benefit to all employees and incorporating a Green Team who is responsible for keeping our office eco-friendly. We know our employees are talented, compassionate and full of great ideas, but if we don’t give them a way to communicate those ideas, how will we know what they are looking for?
Providing the tools for success
In addition to normalizing flexibility and empowerment, we offer our employees training and tools to help them maintain a positive outlook. We hold several trainings throughout the year to build our next generation of leaders. We send our employees to courses involving crucial conversations and have team building exercises that revolve around the Enneagram and the Clifton Strengths Finder. We work with them to understand how their strengths work within their teams, how to communicate effectively and how their individual strengths and personalities contribute to our company as a whole.
Being present
And then of course, we have fun! We pride ourselves on our culture and standing by what’s important to us. We host patio picnics in the summer where our employees team up and bring in a home-cooked meal for the whole company. Each person provides a free will donation to eat the meal and that money goes to a different charity each week. We give our employees volunteer hours so that they can go out and fill their cups outside of work without having to worry about using their vacation time. We have office happy hours, allowing team members to connect with others outside their direct team. And lastly, we have summer hours! We use these as a way to give our employees a little bit of a break. We understand agency life isn’t for everyone, and these are our ways of allowing them to step away when the weather is nice and take some time for themselves.
Summary
Each of these things are examples of what Flint has incorporated to help attract and retain employees and to avoid the trend of quiet quitting. By valuing our employees and encouraging them to have those tough conversations, we have created a culture where they feel valued, heard and respected.
Looking to join a team that truly values your unique perspective and provides the tools for your success? Check out our open positions here.