They didn’t get ‘weird’ – they got pushed out
Most of the time, people don’t decide to quit all in one day. Sure, there are times when it’s awful enough that this does happen (I’ve done it), but usually there are signs. Organizations are losing their people weeks, sometimes months or years earlier, and just aren’t paying attention.
It isn’t that there’s one single dramatic blow-up, and people don’t just stop caring. That employee didn’t ‘get weird’. They slowly had enough, day after day, until they couldn’t take it anymore. It’s what one of my mentors called “having a belly full”. But that full belly begins with a single bite…and then another …and then another…until you just can’t swallow any more.
I was working for a health facility, and it started with being forced to hang out during lunch. I didn’t want to, but I tried to ‘go along to get along’. And it was clear I wasn’t wanted there. You see, I don’t have kids. This isn’t something I should have to explain, or justify, but in this group, it was used as a weapon against me. There was obviously something wrong with me. I must be some kind of monster. So, as a passive-aggressive means of exclusion, kids were all they’d talk about.
Now I’m all for people talking about kids, having kids, raising kids. I made my choices, and other people make theirs, and that’s fine. But to treat someone as an outsider because of that, and then make it clear that they don’t belong because of that choice is really brutal, because being singled out and held at arm’s length happens day…after day…after day.
Pretty soon it’s filtering down into the office. I tried to talk to my boss about feeling marginalized, but as long as I got my work done, she didn’t care how uncomfortable I was. I even cleaned everything out of my desk, and I mean every picture, every personal item, every little thing that was mine, and no one even noticed.
That’s the thing – exclusion isn’t going to be a loud blow up in a professional setting. It’s going to be subtle, and repetitive, and easy for someone to dismiss as long as the work gets done.
And it was a shock when I left. But it shouldn’t have been.
There’s 5 major steps to a person disengaging then leaving and relationship, and that includes a work relationship:
- Present – They’re there and excited. You know they’re all in.
- Quieter – They don’t share as much, or volunteer as much. It might just be something in their life, but if you don’t take their perspective, how could you know if it’s that or something more insidious?
- Physically Separate – They begin to remove themselves from the situation physically, whether it’s not wanting to join lunch, or cleaning out their desk. Barriers get created for protection.
- Absent – Now they’re calling out more and there’s a real barrier in place. Chances are, they’re already looking somewhere else.
- Gone – First emotionally, then mentally, and finally physically. And it’s going to cost 90-200% of their wages to replace, over something that was totally foreseeable
And by the time their boss says “I had no idea they were that unhappy” it’s too late.
Work doesn’t need to be a social outlet, but people shouldn’t feel excluded either, for any reason. And, in my case, it was something that happened again and again with the same group of people, but leadership didn’t care because it didn’t affect them directly…until it did.
You’re not going to make everyone happy all of the time, nor should you try, but these signals are there long before the final exit.
Don’t assume your team has just magically stopped caring – there might be a different problem. And if you can’t identify the problem, you’re never going to get a solution. Take their perspective. What’s really happening here?
Oh yeah – and if someone’s performance has suddenly shifted “out of nowhere”, it probably wasn’t out of nowhere. You just weren’t paying attention. The signals are always going to show well before the resignation letter.
