what's quitting in seat

What’s Quitting In Seat And How Do You Stop It?

In Leadership Resources by Brandt A. HandleyLeave a Comment

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Perhaps you’ve heard the term ‘quitting in seat’ before and are quite aware of how it affects your company. If not, quitting in seat describes an employee who stays working but has effectively checked out and become disengaged.

In your Middle Market firm, you surely want every employee to be excited and engaged by their position. However, likely you will have a few at any given time who are disconnected. With the uncertainty in the economy in the past few years, more employees are choosing to stay employed when unhappy. But, they are doing it without any interest in doing more than the bare minimum.

How To Recognize This Situation

No matter how great your hiring plans are, you will occasionally hire someone who isn’t going to be successful in your company. We aren’t talking about hiring failures and we aren’t talking about trouble or toxic employees.

The employees we are discussing have been successful members of your Middle Market organization at one point and have slowly or dramatically faded down into just doing enough to keep their job.

So, how do you recognize this situation early and can you prevent someone from going completely downhill? You’re basically looking for employees who have lost their spark and are disengaged – from their teams, leadership and the job functions themselves.

Common signs someone is struggling:

  • Previously outspoken but rarely speaks up now
  • Proactive with great suggestions but now rarely has any ideas
  • Friendly and outgoing but is much quieter
  • Star performer who starts making many mistakes
  • Formerly punctual and reliable employee is now frequently late or out sick

    • Unfortunately, many companies don’t recognize these symptoms until they are quite blatant.

    Keeping Employees From Disengaging

    In order to help prevent quitting in seat, your Middle Market firm needs to keep employees engaged.

  • Make sure your employees know they are valued members of your team.

  • Frequently ask for their input and use it.

  • Give employees meaningful work that they can grow in and excel at. How your organization treats each individual position sets the tone for how employees view their role.

  • Hold employees accountable. Do frequent check-ins and reviews with your teams and make sure they know what results you expect and how they will be rewarded for meeting and exceeding them.

  • Have a strong map for growth within your organization and offer plenty of opportunities for learning. Cross-training, role expansion, and paid training opportunities are just some ideas.

    • Turning The Tide

    If you see any employee exhibiting these behaviors, your best step is to tackle it head-on. Have a meeting with the employee and gently and without judgment, explore what the issue might be. If you take the time to ask what is going on and actively listen without judging to the answers, you might be surprised.

    Often, an eye-opening conversation can be the start to turning the situation around. Use the information that is shared and try to make changes that re-engage the team member. Check in with them frequently and see how things are going. If you aren’t able to make changes, work with the employee to see if there are other avenues you could explore to get them back on track. The worst thing you can do is nothing because if the employee finds another opportunity, they will likely leave.

    Make sure you can spot employees who are quitting in seat and know how to get to the heart of what they want.

    So what’s in the Mighty Middle Market for me? — get it right now at www.Go4ROI.com.

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