There are many reasons why team productivity might falter from day to day or week to week. Disruptive current events, personal crises, company reorganizations, and more all play a part in the total picture of workplace success. But these external factors have a relatively short lifespan, too — at some point, things will return to normal. At some point, work (and life) continues on. 

But what if the root cause of your team’s lackluster performance isn’t some outside influence, but a core problem that’s taken root internally? That’s right, we’re talking about that dreaded c-word: complacency.

All right, so maybe it’s not the absolute worst c-word that exists, but when it comes to the workplace, it’s pretty high up there. Complacency, apathy, disengagement… these are all killers when it comes to employee performance and growth potential. It’s important to know what signs to look for when discerning whether or not your own team is suffering from these foundational issues. 

Signs of complacency

  • Disengagement: do your team members seem like they’re clocked out? 
  • Lack of urgency: where is the hustle, the drive, the energy?
  • Lack of initiative: where is the hand-raising, the volunteering, the excitement to take on new projects?
  • Lack of attention to detail: are sloppy mistakes like typos, editorial errors, and file mixups starting to become a frequent occurrence? Does it seem like your team is more about taking shortcuts than submitting high-quality work?
  • Risk aversion: do team members seem less than enthusiastic about pursuing new ventures or thinking outside of the box? Are they content with simply maintaining the status quo?

Impact on your company

Even a single one of these signs can have disastrous effects on a company’s bottom line and a team’s synergy. In the best-case scenario, you’re dealing with plummeting employee morale and creative lethargy. Worst case? These issues are causing a legitimate loss of revenue due to poor work quality and a serious lack of innovation. Either way, it reflects poorly on you and you’re in need of a solution.

Surprise is the answer

Lucky for you, we have that very solution at the ready: Surprise. Surprise is the world’s first SuccessOS for teams, a platform that works at the manager, team, and individual level to eliminate apathy and complacency-caused performance drags. Our completely unique user experience combined with the power of Surprise makes people actually want to perform their jobs better.

Fully automated and totally turnkey, this intelligent system helps employees build the fundamental skills and behaviors needed to do their jobs better. And by gamifying the workplace experience and offering variable rewards that maximize positive impact on productivity, Surprise makes even the most tedious tasks fun and enjoyable again.

Bottom line: Surprise is the best weapon you could have in your arsenal when combatting workplace complacency. Try it for free with your team, right now.

Gretchen Fox is the Director of Content Marketing at Surprise.com. A novelist, blogging veteran, and social media aficionado, she splits the majority of her time between wordsmithing, wrangling her children, and rewatching old episodes of The Office and Parks & Rec on repeat.