Employees often become silent gradually after feeling repeatedly ignored at work

Silence in the workplace does not usually come from boredom or lack of engagement. Silence comes from repetition. An employee raises concerns in meetings; they are continuously interrupted, have their ideas shut down quickly, or see themselves ignored until others make a point out of their contributions. Any one of these instances would not normally constitute an occurrence that should drastically alter employee attitudes towards engagement. Nevertheless, such repetitions may subtly transform employees’ perceptions of engaging in the workplace over time.

Employees don’t stop making valuable contributions because of a sudden loss of interest in work. What actually happens is that they begin reassessing whether their contributions continue to be meaningful, productive, and fulfilling. Based on research by Gallup, employee engagement increases significantly when employees believe their opinions and contributions are valued.


This change usually occurs very subtly. A person who was earlier an active participant may now contribute less during group discussions, share fewer ideas, and become quieter than usual during collaborations. To the managers, this may look like a lack of motivation or ambition on their part. The truth is that from within, the employee simply doesn’t see any effect of his contribution anymore. It is hard to spot this issue because, unlike conflict, silence does not cause problems at once.

Repeated dismissal changes how employees evaluate effort

It has been well documented by workplace psychologists that people react very positively to patterns of recognition, inclusion, and fairness. When an individual feels ignored or interrupted constantly, it tends to create a pattern whereby he/she begins protecting himself/herself by withholding contributions. As stated by the APA Work in America Survey, psychological safety and respectful communication greatly impact an employee’s welfare, trust, and sustained engagement at the place of work.

Dismissal of contributions from an employee on multiple occasions often results in his/her growing wariness and reticence towards participation. It is never one bad meeting that causes this; it is all about the accumulation of these experiences. Accumulation of suggestions being dismissed, normalizing of interruptions, and even deciding the final outcome of discussions prior to the discussions taking place all go to educate the employees on what is expected of participation. Studies conducted at MIT Sloan Management Review on teamwork indicate the significance of psychological safety in collaboration.

Misunderstandings can occur from employees’ reactions to the situation. They may start believing that they have developed low self-confidence and cooperation skills. The truth is that some individuals are merely adjusting to situations wherein voicing their opinions will not be productive and will only waste their energy.

Teams lose more than ideas when employees stop contributing openly

Apart from losing out on ideas that could be shared in a meeting, the expense of silence is also lost in terms of warnings, constructive criticism, operational issues, and different viewpoints that can aid an organization in correcting its mistakes. McKinsey & Company suggests that organizations with higher psychological safety levels are better able to collaborate, learn, and adapt due to increased feelings of safety among their members.

Some managers tend to interpret silence as agreement. However, workers are likely to tune out in conversations long before they tune out on tasks. In this case, they can keep doing things the way they were instructed to do, but refrain from sharing any thoughts and ideas that may be valuable yet seem useless to say, because nothing would come of it. A positive organizational culture tries to minimize this scenario by encouraging healthy participation and managing disruptive behaviors appropriately. Employees rarely have high hopes that all of their suggestions are going to be adopted successfully. They just need proof that participation is worthwhile.