A Zombie employee . . .

Why at times when companies having the right amount of workforce, fails to deliver? There might be many factors out of which incorrect analysis, bad planning, logistics are somewhat noticeable ones. But, there is one more factor that is not under the limelight and sometimes not even considered if compared to all these other factors. This factor is created by Zombie Employees . . . .

What is Zombie Employee?

Zombie employees are the ones who are hired based on their skill sets and experience after passing the hiring processes; going through onboarding; assigned proper work tasks and successfully delivering it and in the end not getting the appreciation they are looking for.

What Zombie Employees do?

They attend office at 9 and leaves at 5. They are punctual, they adhere to company policies, and do not give anyone a chance for finger-pointing.

They are well versed in their work and they can bring value in addition to the tasks.

What they don't do?

Once they were treated as hardworking, motivated, and inspirational resources but now they are just like zombies, just sitting, working slowly, without any actual life, without any smiles, without the thirst for achieving something. The only thirst they have is waiting for the goodies to be transferred to their bank account every month. There is nothing positive left in them, which can be seen as a beacon of light. They are there, in the company, and at the same time, their presence is not where it should be. 

It does not matter which path took them in becoming a zombie, but the important thing is that they are now part of your circle, your department, your office, your company, your organization. There can be several defined, undefined, certain, uncertain paths to the Zombie Mode but all end up in the same situation of creating Zombies.

Zombie can create another zombie and so on . . . If you don't believe it, try it . . .

What HR should do?

Identify the Zombies

As of today, no technology lets you read the mind of individuals so it's really hard to identify these Zombie Employees. The quickest and easiest way to identify them is to monitor and measure the current vs previous performance of the employees and if you see some red flags, you need to talk to those employees immediately.

Identify the root cause

The second step in the process should be to talk to these employees and try to identify the root cause of their declined performance. It's not easy to identify the actual problems an employee is facing, you need to do your proper homework to get the required results i.e. a happily satisfied employee.

If I have to do this, I will break this homework into two parts, number one is to get an understanding of the department, its culture, its importance, the actual work they do, the attitude of line managers, etc.

The second and most crucial part is to gather as much information about your employee as possible using the company's database, friends, and observation. Unnoticeable information about the employee like Date and Place of birth, Education, past job experiences, skills sets, etc. helps you in making a huge leap in employee-employer relationship building. The more you know about them the more comfortable and open for discussions they will be.

Eliminate the root cause

As soon as the root cause has been identified, try to group them into different sections i.e. Low Impact - High Return. This will help you in resolving the crucial root causes earlier and you can get an immediate return from removing those issues.

Not every root cause needs money to be spent on, some can be taken care of just by sending an email or highlighting an effort. This can be listed down where a simple yet effective solution can be applied.

Eliminate the Zombies

After the zombie employees are identified there comes a series of steps and procedures or processes that one can try to overcome this persistent issue. By eliminating it doesn't mean that you fire an employee, firing an employee is easy but it won't make you prone to other zombie employees out there and what is the surety that the next replacement you hire will not become a zombie?

To Answer all these you need to take some solid steps, steps that should eliminate the root cause of becoming a zombie employee.

• Talk to them and identify the issues
• Have a listen to what they have to say
• Make them feel great
• Make them feel that they are adding value to the company
• Tell them their mistakes and ask them to improve those in the agreed time
• Appreciate their efforts whenever possible
• Give them challenging tasks and help them in achieving those
• Do not discourage instead encourage them
• Don't commit which you cannot deliver, follow the commitments that you made
• Don't micromanage, delegate and empower these employees
• Don't push them to follow the ancient processes and rules as they have worked earlier, ask them to come up with something different yet effective

Repeat . . . the process . . . . It is an ongoing process and to maintain a productive company you have to keep doing this . . . Happy Employees are productive employees!

 What Zombie Employees should do?

Managers, HR, or Heads may take some time to identify the zombie employees but a zombie employee knows that he/she is the one. If you are even something closer to a zombie employee,

Don't sit back and act like you don't care. You are working for an organization and you are not doing justice to your job by not putting your 100%.

One can understand that something bad or maybe worse might have happened several times down the line but sitting back and doing nothing won't solve anything. Get up and have an open discussion with your manager/ supervisor or if possible talk to HR. Discuss your issues with them, tell them how you feel professionally about those incidents. The best-case scenario is that you will get satisfied after what they have to say and you will be back to your productive streak. 

If you have already tried all of these suggestions and nothing worked for you then it's time for you to move on, try a new job, because sitting like a zombie in the existing job will not bring any new learning, no exciting tasks, and ultimately no appreciation to follow. As months go by without this new learning you will become obsolete and no one will miss your absence as you were already dead a long time ago . . . .