When Employees Stop Going the Extra Mile: What Managers Can Do About It

There is a change happening in many workplaces that can be easy to miss.

People are still meeting deadlines. Tasks are being completed. Teams are getting through their workloads.

But some of the things that used to happen alongside the day job are happening less often.

People stop volunteering for projects. Fewer ideas come up in meetings. Someone who would usually spot a problem and fix it leaves it for their manager. Colleagues become less likely to step in when another team member needs help.

On paper, everything can look fine. But in practice, something has changed.

This is the issue behind what has recently been described as an “effort recession”: people continuing to do their jobs while becoming more selective about the additional time, energy and initiative they give to their organisation.

This follows on from our recent article about improving employee engagement without adding more work. There, we looked at the everyday things that shape how people experience work. Here, we are looking at one particular part of that experience: what makes someone willing to put in extra effort in the first place?

For managers and HR teams, understanding this can help identify problems earlier, before they start showing up in productivity, retention or team relationships.

What happens when people start doing only what is required?

There is a difference between someone being disengaged and someone deciding to protect their time and energy.

Consider an employee who has spent the last year taking on additional projects, helping colleagues, answering messages outside their usual responsibilities and regularly suggesting ways to improve their team's processes.

Then priorities keep changing. Their extra work receives little recognition. Development conversations keep being postponed. Their workload remains high.

Eventually, they might decide to focus on their actual responsibilities.

They still produce good work. They still attend meetings. They still meet their objectives.

They simply stop volunteering for the additional things.

From the employee's perspective, that decision can make perfect sense.

This is why managers need to look at the reasons behind a change in behaviour rather than assuming someone has become lazy or less committed.

Why discretionary effort matters

Every organisation relies on people doing things that will never appear in a job description.

Someone notices that a customer is confused and takes the time to help.

A colleague shares an idea that makes a process quicker.

An employee spots a potential problem before it becomes an expensive one.

A team member stays for ten minutes after a meeting to help someone understand what was agreed.

These small actions make organisations work better.

When fewer of them happen, the impact can build gradually. Problems take longer to resolve. Managers spend more time following up. Teams become more dependent on formal processes. Good ideas remain unspoken.

Gallup's UK research has consistently shown a relationship between employee engagement and business outcomes, while CIPD research continues to highlight the importance of management, workload, autonomy, development and employee voice in people's experience of work.

The question for managers is therefore not simply, “How do we get people to try harder?”

A better starting point is:

“What has changed that might be making people less willing to contribute?”

Five Questions Every Manager Should Be Asking

There are five areas worth exploring when a team seems less willing to take initiative.

1. Do people trust what they’re being told?

People are more likely to invest extra effort when they have confidence in their manager and the organisation.

Do managers do what they say they will do? Are decisions explained? Can employees raise concerns without worrying about how they will be perceived?

Trust is built through repeated everyday experiences. A manager who follows up on an issue raised three weeks ago sends a very different message from one who regularly says they will look into something and never comes back to it.

2. Do people feel that their effort is noticed?

People notice what happens to extra effort.

If someone regularly takes on difficult work and receives little acknowledgement, while highly visible contributions from a small number of people receive most of the attention, they may eventually decide their time is better spent elsewhere.

Recognition does not need to be elaborate.

“Thank you for sorting that out” is useful. Something more specific is often more meaningful:

“You spotted that issue before it reached the client. That saved us a lot of time and prevented a much bigger problem.”

It tells the employee exactly what their contribution achieved.

3. Can people see where their work could take them?

Extra responsibility can be motivating when it helps someone build a skill they actually want.

For example, an employee who wants to move into management might benefit from leading a small project. Someone interested in presenting could take responsibility for a client presentation.

The important part is having the conversation first.

“Is this something that would help you develop the skill you want to build?”

That makes additional responsibility part of someone's development rather than simply adding another task to their workload.

4. What happens when someone speaks up?

Managers should pay attention to what happens when people speak up.

Are ideas discussed seriously? Can someone disagree with a decision? What happens when a mistake is made?

People quickly learn which behaviours are welcomed and which ones create problems for them.

If suggestions are routinely ignored, employees may stop making them. If mistakes are met with blame, people may become more cautious. If the same people are always asked to help, others may quite reasonably stop volunteering.

5. Does the workload leave any room to help?

This one is easy to overlook.

Someone who is already working at full capacity has very little room for additional contribution.

The answer is often found in priorities rather than motivation.

When a new urgent task arrives, managers can ask:

“What should come off your list to make room for this?”

That one question can tell employees that their capacity is being taken seriously.

Before you try to fix It, find out what’s actually happening

Before changing your engagement strategy, run a short pulse survey.

It could include six statements:

• I am willing to take on additional tasks when I have the capacity.

• I feel comfortable suggesting improvements to the way we work.

• I regularly help colleagues when I have the time to do so.

• My manager notices and acknowledges my contribution.

• I can see opportunities to develop my skills here.

• I trust my manager to treat people fairly.

Keep it short and anonymous.

The results can help identify patterns, but the numbers are only the starting point.

Ask employees:

“Think about the last time you chose to put extra effort into something at work. What made you want to do it?”

Then ask:

“What would make you more likely to do that again?”

The answers may be surprisingly practical.

Perhaps people want clearer priorities. Perhaps they want greater recognition. Perhaps they are frustrated by a process that takes two hours to complete a task that should take twenty minutes.

That is information a standard engagement score can easily miss.

What can managers do this week?

Once you understand the problem, the response does not need to be complicated.

Start by making expectations clearer. Identify the behaviours that genuinely help the team and explain why they matter.

Make recognition part of normal management. A five-minute conversation after someone has handled a difficult situation well can be more useful than waiting for an annual review.

Use one-to-ones to discuss development properly. Ask people what they want to learn, then look for opportunities that support those goals.

Create room for people to speak honestly. Ask what is making their work harder and take action where you can.

And keep an eye on workload. If someone is already stretched, adding another request and calling it a “development opportunity” is unlikely to have the intended effect.

A 90-day reset you can actually manage

In the first 30 days, run the pulse survey, discuss the findings and identify one or two changes the team agrees would make a difference. Introduce a simple recognition habit.

Over the next 30 days, use one-to-ones to discuss development and workload. Look for opportunities for people to take on projects that genuinely interest them.

By 90 days, run the pulse again. Look at what has changed and, just as importantly, ask employees what they have noticed.

Use the results to remove practical frustrations. That might mean reducing unnecessary meetings, changing an approval process, clarifying responsibilities or stopping a report that nobody uses.

Helping organisations understand where effort is being lost

At Communicate Inclusively, we work with organisations to understand what is happening underneath employee engagement data.

Our Audits and Insights can combine short employee pulse surveys with conversations with managers and employees to identify where people are becoming less willing to contribute and what may be driving that change.

We can then help managers turn those findings into practical changes around recognition, management, development, communication and workload.

The goal is a workplace where people want to contribute

People do not make decisions about their effort in isolation.

Their experience of their manager, their workload, their opportunities and the way their contribution is treated all influence what they are willing to give.

For HR professionals, this makes declining initiative worth paying attention to.

For managers, it creates an opportunity to ask a more useful question than “Why aren't they doing more?”

“What would make contributing feel worthwhile again?”

That is where the conversation can begin.