While the majority of disengaged workers end up looking for work elsewhere, leading to healthy turnover in their organizations, the “prisoners” stay put and impede progress, said the human-resources consulting firm in a recent white paper based on case studies of its clients.

1. Workplace Prisoners
Human Resource Management

2. Prepared By
Manu Melwin Joy
Assistant Professor
SCMS School of Technology and Management
Kerala, India.
Phone – 9744551114
Mail – manu_melwinjoy@yahoo.com
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Please seek permission to reproduce the same in public forms and presentations.

3. Workplace prisoners
• While the majority of
disengaged workers end
up looking for work
elsewhere, leading to
healthy turnover in their
organizations, the
“prisoners” stay put and
impede progress, said the
human-resources
consulting firm in a recent
white paper based on
case studies of its clients.

4. Workplace prisoners
• About 8% of employees
are “workplace
prisoners,” a category
described by Aon
Hewitt as people who
stay at their jobs despite
feeling unmotivated,
disengaged and
generally negative
about their employers.

5. Workplace prisoners
• You might be surprised to learn
that one in twelve global
workers are “Disengaged" yet
are still planning to stay with
their current employer. That's
correct. About 8 percent of the
people you come in contact
with at work or in a working
situation are miserable in what
they are doing, are doing the
minimum to get by and have no
plan to change their situation.
We call these employees
“Workplace Prisoners."

7. Workplace prisoners
• In what may be a
chicken-and-egg
problem, long-tenured
employees are likelier to
fit the “prisoner”
profile. Among workers
with 26 years or more at
their company, 17.1%
are prisoners, Aon said.

8. Workplace prisoners

9. Workplace prisoners
• Such disengaged workers also
tend to be higher-paid, in
accordance with their typically
longer tenures. In one firm
that Aon studied, around 61%
of such unhappy employees
received salaries above the
market median for their jobs,
and 27% received below the
median. Among other
employees, 48% were paid
above-market salaries and 41%
fell below the median for
compensation.

10. Workplace prisoners
• Aon said managers
should focus on getting
such disengaged
employees to shape up
or move out since they
“are keeping you from
achieving your goals.”

11. Workplace prisoners
• Some workplace prisoners can
be motivated to improve; in
fact, many report that they
don’t feel their managers
encourage them to work up to
their potential. When that
doesn’t work, managers and
human resources leaders need
to be ready for “difficult
conversations,” along with
implementing performance
improvement plans, which are
often the first step to a
termination.

12. Workplace prisoners
• Our research has uncovered a
number of reasons why
employees become “Prisoners."
One reason is inertia. An
employee who has been with
their employer for many years
is far more likely to stay despite
being “Disengaged." Someone
might be an expert at their job,
but the thought of going
somewhere else that is more
inspiring to them is terrifying.
That's why more than 17
percent of people working at
the same place for 26 plus
years are “Prisoners."

13. Are you a Prisoner?
• First, ask yourself two questions about your
organization.
– In general, do you say good things about your
organization when talking with friends and family?
– Does your organization inspire you to do your best at
work?
– Do you intend to stay with your employer a long time?
• If you answered “yes" to question three, that you
intend to stay with your employer a long time and
responded an emphatic “no" to question one,
question two, or both, you are wearing the
shackles of a “Workplace Prisoner."

14. Get Yourself released
• Can you be engaged at your current employer?
– If “no," then you need ask yourself if your health
and happiness are worth it. Keep in mind that you
are patterning behavior that others see. If you have
children, they may believe that work is a miserable
experience that must be tolerated and that could
taint their perception of work for life.

15. Get Yourself released

16. Get Yourself released
• What would it take to be engaged by your
current employer?
– Break your responses into two categories – what
you can do make it happen and what your
organization or leadership can do to make it
happen. Engagement is bidirectional—not
something that is done to you—so be sure not to
leave the “what you can do" part blank.

17. Get Yourself released
• This is the really hard part. Gather all the
courage you can and have a conversation with
your manager or leadership about your list. Let
them know there is more to you than what they
have seen lately. Tell them what you'd like to
see from them and what you are committed to
doing in order to re-engage.

18. Get Yourself released
• This is the really hard part. Gather
all the courage you can and have a
conversation with your manager or
leadership about your list. Let them
know there is more to you than
what they have seen lately. Tell
them what you'd like to see from
them and what you are committed
to doing in order to re-engage.