Employers warned of new office malady: ‘Invisible Employee Syndrome’

While some workers might be happy to stay under the workplace radar, this lack of engagement does not benefit their employers. Now firms are being warned of a previously unrecognised malaise, Invisible Employee Syndrome, which occurs when employees ‘go dark’, disappear off the performance and talent radar, and intentionally or unintentionally become invisible to their employer. The survey cites a range of contributory factors, including inadequate engagement, poor communications, a lack of insights and broken HR processes and systems. The joint survey from HRMS provider Fairsail and HR Grapevine showed that 78 percent of respondents felt employees were poorly engaged. Many UK organisations are suffering from this ailment, which the research suggests is reducing productivity, sapping innovation, undermining competitiveness and fueling attrition.

Research carried out with HR professionals from a range of sectors in organizations with 250-10,000 employees, found that 77 percent of respondents felt their employees were poorly or partly engaged and had only a limited or inconsistent understanding of what was going on in the business.  86 percent of respondents believed that their organization spent less than 50 percent of the time focusing on employees over customers, with 46 percent of these companies spending less than 25 percent of their time on employee-related matters.

Over a third (35%) were concerned enough by poor employee engagement to make it their top issue in 2015.

“This lack of interest and attention can lead to employees feeling invisible to managers and leaders,” said Adam Hale, CEO at Fairsail.

“There is a danger that they are just being treated as hubots, or human robots, just showing up for work, doing their job, getting paid and going home, day in and day out. This can lead to drudgery, boredom and a lack of interest in the business. While customer focus is important for businesses, great customer experiences are unlikely to be delivered by a workforce that is not engaged or motivated.”

You can view the report’s full results here.