Five reasons why your employees don’t care and what you can do about it

3 min read

Sometimes in the business world, it feels as though your staff isn’t really in sync with you. You get the feeling that perhaps not all of them care as much as you’d like them to. 

Your feeling is even more apparent when you analyse the data from your exit interviews – employee surveys show that they’re not as engaged as before. And you need a plan to fix this. But before you can set up and execute your plan, you need to know why this is the case. 

This is when you ask yourself: Why might your employees not care about the business? 

We’ll uncover the top five reasons your employees don’t care and how you can overcome these challenges with realistic solutions below.

1. Communication is not fast, flowing or honest

Your information flows may not be reaching all your employees. Are they stuck with middle managers? Do you announce important news via outdated communication methods that your people simply aren’t using? Do you send out long, all-staff emails that no one reads?

The solution: Create a multi-layered communication approach that allows you to have open and honest communication with employees, ideally with a centralised employee engagement platform that can act as an anchor for all information flows.

2. Engagement is seen as a nice-to-have, and initiatives never seem to last

Do your engagement-boosting initiatives have a big bang and a fast fizzle? It’s hard to make staff care when your efforts to build culture and commitment aren’t long-lasting. On top of that, are you reminding your people about these new initiatives? 

It’s no surprise that everyone has different communication preferences and it’s your job to make sure you’re inclusive of your people. 

The solution: Ensure that your initiatives fit and enhance the culture you’re trying to foster. Make sure they can be repeated, have clear ownership and have the ability to change while staying relevant.

3. Engagement isn't appropriately resourced 

Does engagement sit with a single, overworked person? Does it have sufficient funding for the plan to last all year? Do you have office champions in place to enable you to gather feedback locally and to adjust to meet the business’s changing needs?

The solution: Work out your plan, resource it appropriately (people, funds, support), and always give yourself some wiggle room to address any issues that may come up.  When your staff know that you’re dealing with key concerns – and understand the why behind decisions – they’ll be more engaged.

4. Your cultural values aren't aligned

Do your values reflect those that the company started out with? Are they relevant to the company today? Were they designed by the staff? A company whose cultural values support and champion staff will create a sense of shared purpose, meaning a more innovative and dedicated workforce.

The solution: Do a work-through of your company cultural values. Make sure they’re championed by the CEO or other leaders in the organisation, but also make sure your staff agree with them so that everyone can work together more effectively and efficiently.

5. You haven't taken cultural fit into consideration when hiring

Are you basing your recruitment decisions solely on the skills someone has, or are you assessing whether candidates would add to the team, department and business, versus just “fitting in?”

The solution: Make sure you understand the difference between culture fit vs. culture add. Use some personality profiling to understand what motivates your candidate and how they like to work. Test and challenge this at interview level to ensure that everyone you hire will enjoy working with your business.

If you feel like your employees don’t care, there are ways to realistically overcome this and move towards improving employee engagement at your organisation. How will you use these solutions at your organisation?