As the COVID-19 has seriously disrupted the style of working, employers’ across the world are looking for new ways to live up to their workers’ expectations. While people are still performing their assigned tasks at work to survive in the Hybrid culture, they are rarely going above and beyond for reasons such as to avoid burnout or to prioritize their mental health. This has given birth to a new phenomenon called ‘quiet quitting’.
Since the pandemic, the employees are no longer feeling productive at work, resulting in disengagement. This has put immense pressure on businesses to address issues brought on by the pandemic, which banished the traditional process of working and changed employees’ expectations of the office.
Having said that, let’s understand what measures companies are taking to address quiet quitting.
1.Redesigning the office space
As the employees have returned to offices after the past two years of COVID-induced lockdowns, employers are doing their best to make the workplace more conducive. In order to reverse the quiet quitting, big companies are even paying full attention to redesigning their office spaces according to the needs of employees. They have been actively stepping up to enhance the workplace experience through office activation, technology, and designs.
There is no doubt in saying that the pandemic has changed a lot. One can see a huge gap now between the expectations of Hybrid workers and the office experience currently delivered to them. Therefore, the organisations are strongly focusing on office acoustics and wellness initiatives.
2. Listening to employees
Besides redesigning the workplace, employers are also taking other effective initiatives to encourage their employees in the office. One of them is listening to their problems. Studies have shown that employees who know they are heard are more engaged and productive at work.
Nowadays, employees have gotten used to remote working where they can control everything as per their choices, much like having their own office space at home. This “Work From Home” (WFH) to “Work From Office” transition is obviously barring the employees from working on their own terms. More precisely, the lack of sound privacy, excessive noise levels, especially in the open areas and hot-desking workstations, are affecting the workplace experience for many professionals.
Having adequate space at the office, including outdoor spaces, creative spaces, networking spaces, and learning spaces, is therefore necessary to accommodate different needs of workers.
3.Wellbeing initiatives to address quiet quitting
Wellbeing initiatives are another significant area where employees want to feel more supported at the workplace. To bring out a solution for quiet quitting, companies are offering free mental health assessments or incorporating therapeutic spaces for good mental health and wellbeing of employees at work.
Every working professional spends at least 8 to 9 hours at work, hence, it is natural that an office experience would influence an employee’s behaviour. In this sense, the companies should come forward and try every best possible way to support their workers both physically and mentally. Only then they could reverse quiet quitting.