How to Avoid the Zombie Apocalypse at Work – Adweek

Business leaders are well aware of the threats they face. The competition. The pandemic. The other 100 problems that keep them up at night.

But theres another threata threat from inside the organization. A threat that too many leaders dont quite believe in, until its too late.

Im talking about the zombie employee.

Unlike in the movies, they blend in, but you can still spot them with practice. Theyre killing ideas. Theyre not contributing. Theyre devouring overall productivity. Theyre not evil nor are they intentionally doing anything wrong; Zombies dont sabotage a business on purpose. In fact, they arent to blame for their miserable state.

No, the business itself created them. It was zombification through a thousand paper cuts.

Outdated tools? Cut. Broken processes? Cut. Not fixing known problems? Two cuts for that one. Ineffective managers? Cut. No career trajectory? Big cut. Asking for feedback and taking zero action in response? Deep cut.

The zombie employee is the inevitable outcome of a feeling of futility. Its a survival technique. When someone just cant survive the workday anymore, they turn undead. (I want to point out that its very different from burnout, which many employees are understandably feeling during the pandemic. Burnout is a matter of employee wellnessand a very serious matter at that.)

When a business creates zombies, they dont just transform the employee in a negative way. They kill innovation. They sicken the culture. All the required elements of a thriving business and the real benefit of a powerful employee experience never have a chance to flourish. And the worst part? Its contagious. The ablest employees run while the rest stay put, get frustrated by a passionless and unmotivated cohort and get infected. Its apocalyptic.

But theres hope!

Unlike in the movies, zombification is not permanent. Theres a cure. And the first step toward obtaining the cure is deciding to do something about it.

According to research (our own and that of others), when employees onboard with a feeling of futility, they feel like they dont matter to the business. This is where managers are crucial. Too many managers focus on performance, not the person. Since the kind of disengaged employee were talking about will do enough to skate by but little else, most managers give them a stamp of approval. In doing so, the manager inadvertently validates the employees overall disengagement through an overly mechanical grasp of employee performance. In a similar vein, managers often focus on their own mandates and needs, rather than those of the employee.

The solution? The purview of managers needs to shift from mere monitoring and evaluation to coaching and mentorship. They also need to be empowered to address issues they seeespecially those that make life harder for employees. After all, their real purpose is to serve as the connective tissue between employees and executive management, and they need to be seen by the employees as having both parties interests in mind.

Lastly, recognition programs helpa lot. Employees need recognition from leaders, but peer recognition is also vital in reinforcing a sense of belonging (i.e., being an important part of a team). Rewarding micro-actions and attitudes is also a strong motivator. But these things might not appear on the radar of managers and executives, because managers and executives dont always see day-to-day goings-on. Peers do. Empowering colleagues to reward each other with some kind of currency (i.e., formal social recognition or small rewards) shows employees that theyre both seen and heard.

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How to Avoid the Zombie Apocalypse at Work - Adweek