Employee Detachment: What It is and How to Prevent It

Detachment is effectively employee disengagement in a general sense, where employees may be present in the workplace but are not mentally and emotionally focused on their work, and so not giving their best.

This is a fundamental risk to the success of any organisation and employers need to address it. It can lead to many real issues, from employee productivity concerns to increased turnover numbers which can reach record-high turnover in a cooling job market with wider impacts on areas such as delivery of services, customer satisfaction, and even implementation of AI.

The use of the single term “detachment” is, in itself, a risk because it fails to adequately help leaders and companies really understand what is going on beneath the surface in their workforce and how to take the most effective steps to deal with it.

No matter what you call it, employee detachment or disengagement, it needs to be addressed. However, the biggest problem is that detachment is not visible and distinguishing between individuals who are detached and those who are not is not easy. And if you cannot easily identify those who are detached, how can you solve the problem?

How big is the employee detachment problem?

Detachment is a significant problem in every workplace, across industries and countries and we need to make changes to beat it. Detachment is essentially not being engaged at work. If you take the significant Gallup research data, and that which others produce on engagement, even taking an optimistic perspective potentially only 30% of employees in a majority of organisations are engaged – giving their best. Having 70% of your employees not giving their best should be something which gives leaders and, in particular C-Suite, nightmares. However, resolving this often doesn’t feature as one of their key priorities.

Gallup defines “actively disengaged” employees as those who are “emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and less likely to be productive". And that inevitably has an impact on products, services and customers.

Gallup’s latest research, and other studies, have also shown significant impacts both economically and in terms of wider society, potentially a loss of $7.8 trillion revenue globally which is approximately 11% of global GDP.

Related: 8 Elements of Effective Employee Engagement

Employee Detachment – what you aren’t told but need to know

It’s really important that you understand what is happening today beneath the surface, and that’s much more than the vast majority of articles on detachment tell you. It’s only when you understand this will you be able to identify specific opportunities and actions to solve the problem.

To keep it simple think of employees who are “engaged” as not being detached. Most articles on detachment consider the “detached” to be one single group, they aren’t. The employee engagement perspective digs deeper to enable better understanding.

This employee engagement perspective actually fall into two groups, the “not engaged" and the “disengaged”. As an average in most organisations, if you have 70% of employees who aren’t engaged, then within this group maybe 55 to 60% of total employees will be not engaged and 10 to 15% disengaged. This is a critical distinction.

• “Not Engaged” Employees: These individuals are indifferent but may occasionally perform well.
• “Disengaged” Employees: These individuals are actively avoiding giving their best effort. Their negative influence requires four engaged employees to offset their impact.

If you work out the maths, that means that if you have only 10% disengaged you must have at least 40% engaged to mitigate their impact. That is why having maximum employee engagement is important because statistically, at any time, you will inevitably have a few disengaged people.

On the positive side, if you are a new employer to someone, you will have a honeymoon period of a few weeks to engage them proactively.

Employee Detachment – causes

It’s interesting that many of the drivers of employee detachment are the same as caused The Great Resignation. That reset expectations amongst workers about their work environment, in general terms to expect more from leaders. Many articles on employee detachment list a number of perceived causes. The reality is that these are symptoms not the underlying problem.

The fundamental cause of employee detachment is ineffective leadership which impacts employee experience. What leaders do day to day, or don’t do, is the main cause of detachment. This then manifests itself in a number of areas which are seen as causes but are just visible symptoms:

1. Too much task focus – leaders unable to spend time to focus on people

This is the classic “too much work” and “not enough time” problem where managers are totally focused on the delivery of the task and so fall into the trap of not keeping time to interact positively with people – to set clear expectations, to engage in two-way communication, to inspire, support and develop their people. This creates an environment where employees have little confidence in their leaders. But this focus on task can also manifest itself in micro management which also has a negative impact.

2. Too much work not enough time – team members

This is not just a problem for leaders but it is also a problem for employees where their team leader is unable to effectively manage team workloads. That also leads to negative effects around work-life balance, employee satisfaction, and meeting employee expectations.

This is not just about the ability of the leader to manage the workloads which the team currently has but also to ensure that the team is not overloaded. This one of the greatest challenges which leaders have. They find it difficult to say “no” when they are asked by their boss to take on more work for the team.

“Too much work” and “not enough time” inevitably leads to cognitive overload. At a low level this will lead to detachment and disengagement but as it builds up can potentially lead to burnout and associated mental health issues. Research published in Work & Stress (2023) found that employees experiencing high levels of job stress, coupled with low autonomy, reported higher levels of disengagement and detachment from their work.

3. Lack of recognition

Praise is something we as humans are hard wired to want and enjoy, its a fundamental part of job satisfaction. Employees who don’t feel they are recognised for their good work will disengage. This recognition in most cases is day to day positive feedback where due. But it also needs to be underpinned by good formal performance management practices.

Numerous studies have found employees who feel unappreciated in their roles are more likely to become emotionally detached.

4. Lack of career development

Again, we as humans are hard wired to want to grow and develop so if employees see no clear career path or do not have at least one significant positive growth experience a year they are likely to become detached.

New work opportunities, especially for developing younger employees in new jobs are key to engagement. The 2023 Employee Engagement and Retention survey by Qualtrics found employees who do not see opportunities for long term progression are more likely to become disengaged.

5. Negative culture

All of the previously mentioned problems when combined will create an overall feeling of a negative company culture, a significant driver of detachment. When employees feel undervalued, disrespected, or overworked, their belief in their boss and the organisation significantly decreases.

Just a few simple small steps within a structured process to improve culture will make a real difference. One good way to improve this is to think about how to grow employee pride in what they do and the organisation.

It’s worth mentioning that younger workers, Gen Z in particular, are more susceptible to detachment due to higher expectations so may exhibit it at the highest rate. Whilst they have a lot of intrinsic motivation they need a clear purpose to apply it to and like social interactions around their work. If those aren’t present they can become detached relatively quickly.

6. Remote work

There are also issues that need to be considered for those who are remote working. People like remote work flexibility and the ability to get more done when working on individual work remotely.

However, there is group of about 20% of people who are susceptible to social isolation and need connection. The problem is leaders can’t tell who is in this group. Thus it is essential to ensure that all engaged in hybrid work are supported when working remotely as much, if not more, than when in the office.

Related: How to Diagnose and Eliminate Hidden Work Friction

How to overcome employee detachment

Addressing symptoms like workload imbalance or lack of recognition alone won’t solve the problem. The fundamental issue is average leadership, just good enough to get by. Strengthening leadership to good across all levels is the solution.

1. Accelerate your success system

My proven three-step system was designed to address detachment and disengagement by:

1. Building Strong Leadership Skills: Ensuring foundational leadership abilities are in place.
2. Enabling Leaders to Bring Out the Best in Teams: where employees are supported, recognised, and motivated.
3. Focusing Employee Efforts on Organisational Success: Aligning employees’ best efforts with key business objectives.

2. Good core leadership skills development

This is the only way to minimise employee detachment. Many businesses don’t deliver leadership training to the depth required, assuming they already have effective leaders. Studies suggest 80% of leaders have never been properly trained in critical skills such as delegation. This skill gap directly causes detachment and disengagement.

For example, training leaders in the basics of effective delegation takes less than 10 minutes and has shown to save most managers several hours each week, time they can redirect toward engaging their teams.

3. Targeting the “not engaged” group

While improving leadership benefits all employees, targeting the “not engaged” group offers a key opportunity. Within this group, 10-20% are very close to being engaged. By enhancing leadership skills, this group can shift quickly into being engaged, raising overall engagement to 40% or more, which then helps negate the impact of disengaged employees.

Conclusion

To minimise employee detachment, organisations must ensure strong leadership skills to the depth required are in place. This is the most effective way to improve engagement and optimise performance. By focusing on leadership development, organisations will build a motivated and inspired workforce, which drives productivity, and achieves long-term success.

This was first published on chrisroebuck.live.

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