Engagement and disengagement are effectively separate forms of labor expected of an employee, though, and they’re virtually never formally codified. If I’m a coder and my job is to write code, don’t expect me to be enthused about writing terrible medical billing software. Enthusiasm and engagement are emotional labor, which I’m not compensated for, and which, to some extent, you can’t realistically expect me to demonstrate. I’m not able to “be engaged” beyond performing my tasks and whatever technical or administrative duties I’ve been assigned. Expecting me to contribute in a way orthogonal to that requires my job to be fundamentally different from what it actually is.
Comment on What kind of institutional gaslighting is this?
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 6 months agoMore like inexperienced middle-management. Discussing the team member’s reasons for disengagement could lead to a solution for them, or even multiple team members. Saying “I have nothing to complain about” proves ineffective leadership looking for cause to terminate.
rwhitisissle@lemmy.world 6 months ago
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 6 months ago
That’s fine if that’s how you like to work. All I’m saying is if an employee is silently quitting by doing the same work but shows less engagement/low morale, the solution isn’t for the manager isn’t to shrug their shoulders because you can’t fire them. That implies the manager’s goal is to terminate due to low performance, which is really shitty leadership.
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
The only solution I would accept involves guillotines for the rich and the immediate end to the exploitation of the proletariat globally, so I don’t think that’s going to work for most middle managers.
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 6 months ago
That’s fine. I’m just saying the managers in that meme are the problem, not the employees.
snooggums@midwest.social 6 months ago
You are saying it in a way that sounds like someone doing their job is disengagement.
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Engagement and morale are independent of performance. A good leader will know their employees well enough to be able to ask what’s going on. Sometimes it’s a personal issue that’s on their mind. Other times it’s dissatisfaction with the work environment or company as a whole. It’s your job as a manager to address work-related concerns, and if you’re a good manager, you’d address them simply because you care about the employee.