Top Ten: Disengagement

Disengagement is a worry, now more so than ever with the forecasts of a turnover earthquake. Fortunately, employees often telegraph their feelings and intentions a long time in advance in a number of subtle ways. We’ve compiled the top ten best ways to recognise disengagement among employees so you can act before it’s too late.

1. Many of your employees score as ‘clinically dead’ on reaction time test.

2. A clothes mannequin in the store cupboard has won employee of the month for five months running.

3. Said clothes mannequin is also the only one with whom you can hold a decent conversation. It has a unique perspective on things.

4. Even the Oompa-Loompas are unionising.

5. When the tea supply was accidentally contaminated with horse tranquilisers, productivity moderately increased.

6. You get persistent sales calls from companies purporting to sell “suicide netting”.

7. When you have to make staff cuts and offer voluntary redundancy, the line stretches down the street.

8. The employee with two glass eyes has the least glassy-eyed look in the joint.

9. You’re running at an average of 8.3 dead grandparents per employee.

10. Retirement parties are just a little too celebratory.

About the author

Jerome Langford

Jerome is a graduate in Philosophy from St Andrews, who alternately spends time writing about HR and staring wistfully out of windows, thinking about life’s bigger questions: Why are we here? How much lunch is too much lunch? What do you mean exactly by ‘final warning’?