The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
New terms to describe employee behaviour, such as ‘quiet quitting’ and ‘loud leaving’, have gained prevalence online recently. Now, the latest term to join the ranks is ‘quiet constraint’ – but should business owners be concerned about it?
Similar to ‘quiet quitting’, wherein employees choose to do the minimum requirements for their job role and leave the office on-time, ‘quiet constraint’ sees employees withholding important information from their colleagues that could help them to do their job better.
In a recent US Workplace Culture Report, 58% of employees admitted to holding onto knowledge or information that could benefit co-workers and not sharing it with them.
This trend was most prevalent in Gen Z, with 77% making up this demographic. There are theories that this could be linked to the rise of remote working causing a disconnect between co-workers and making them feel less inclined to help one another.
However, with more businesses operating in a hybrid working style, it’s more important than ever for colleagues to work together and for businesses to establish strong and functional teamwork.
Commenting on the new workplace phenomenon, NerdWallet‘s business finance expert, Connor Campbell, had this to say:
“Adding yet another new term to the ever-growing glossary of employee behaviours, ‘quiet constraint’ has the potential to cause real issues in the workplace if not managed carefully.
“Hybrid working may have, for some businesses, exacerbated a workplace disconnect that emerged during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Businesses took on new staff whilst offices remained closed, leaving employees unfamiliar with one another and therefore less likely to share helpful information.
“We’ve seen a trend towards being more self-focused that started with ‘quiet quitting’, encouraging employees to focus more on their personal needs. This seems to have continued to escalate, with ‘quiet constraint’ further encouraging individualism.
“Hybrid working can be a challenge for businesses to navigate properly. When you add the element of competitiveness that might emerge from trends like ‘quiet constraint’, this team dynamic can really fall apart. This is a concern that business owners should take seriously.
“Knowledge-sharing in the workplace helps to avoid repeating mistakes, and can increase productivity by 10-40%. By sabotaging their co-workers in an attempt to make themselves look better, employees may damage work projects and gain a reputation for unprofessional behaviour in the workplace, and potentially even behaviour that is deemed as ‘toxic’.”
To help business owners avoid having ‘quiet constraint’ lead to problems in their workplace, Connor has shared the following tips:
Introduce employees to one another, including remote-workers
This point is relevant, whether you’ve taken on new staff during the lockdown period or not, as even longer-serving employees may benefit from a refresher course on colleagues they may not have physically seen in-person in a long time.
The importance of introducing new employees to their new colleagues is not something to think lightly about. Employees should be briefed about new-arrivals ahead of time, and should be given a run-down of their strengths and what they’ll be bringing to the already-existing team. This makes the new member of staff less of a rival, and more of a team-member.
Alongside briefing staff about newer employees, one-to-one meetings or calls (if working remotely) should be set up to allow employees to get to know one another better. Ensuring that colleagues build a good working relationship is key to encouraging them to be willing to share information with each other.
Encourage employees to share knowledge in morning meetings
Starting the day with a group meeting is never a bad idea, and can help set the tone for the rest of the day, along with setting expectations and tasks for the entire team. These meetings can also be utilised to encourage information sharing across the team, but business owners should remember that if they want to foster an information-sharing culture, this also applies to them.
Allow each employee to have the opportunity to speak about any information they have gathered that they think would be useful to the team, and ensure that employees that share are praised for their contributions. Business owners should also be willing to share any knowledge or tips that they have gathered with the team, alongside remaining transparent about other company issues.
Additional ways to support these morning meetings, if you have a team that works in-office, are to remove cubicles separating workstations and establish communal brainstorming areas. The key idea is to help employees feel comfortable sharing information and to make them feel that their contributions are valued. However, before making radical changes, it’s important to ensure all personalities feel comfortable in their working environment.
Set up an employee notice board
This can be achieved in-office or online, depending on the work style that your business operates in. Business owners can set up physical notice boards, along with pens and sticky-notes for employees to jot down important information on, or they can make use of shared software online that works in the same way.
One way that businesses can help to implement the shared knowledge boards into their employees’ routines is to pick out pieces of information from the board to be shared in meetings, which helps to boost pride in employees that choose to share information, whilst also making the notice board a slightly more formal part of the office environment.
Make use of team-building activities to strengthen relationships
Team-building activities seem to have developed a bit of a stigma for being an excuse for staff to get out of work, but their foundation is in encouraging better communication amongst employees. The secret to a successful team-building activity is to correctly identify what is causing the communication breakdowns in your business and to select an appropriate activity to target this specifically.
When selecting an activity, business owners should ensure that they include staff in their decision making process to make sure that nobody is left feeling pressured into an activity that they don’t want to do. Forcing people to exercise against their will, for example, may actually do more harm than good, as employees will then associate the team with this negative experience.
Encourage group-working and team projects
One of the most understated ways that business owners can curb selfish-thinking in the workplace is by introducing more group work rather than individual projects. If employees are working towards a shared goal, they may be more likely to share information amongst themselves, since they’ll all be set to benefit from the project doing well.
Group projects can also help to fully utilise all employees’ strengths and specialities, leading to better respect amongst colleagues and generally helping staff feel that they are more valued in the workplace. Teamwork has been shown to improve efficiency and productivity within project management, compared to working alone.
If co-workers respect and trust one another, this will make information sharing more likely as people will want to see those around them and the wider business succeed.
