How do you handle an employee who’s doing the bare minimum? Not underperforming, not breaking any rules—but clearly not going above and beyond either. I had someone on my team like this: hit every deadline, polite in meetings, but never volunteered, never innovated, and definitely didn’t stretch themselves. I didn’t want to pressure them into burnout, but I also noticed it quietly lowering the energy of the rest of the team. If you’ve managed someone like this, how did you approach it? Is there even a “right” way to handle it?

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I'm not sure what the problem is here. You've got an employee who gets their assigned work done and they're polite and they aren't grandstanding in meetings. Can you send five of those over my way? I mean, seriously, if you want them to do more, that's up to you. I'm assuming the person's job description has no mention of having to go above and beyond.

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If you want them to do more work, assign them more work. If you want them to volunteer more, see what motivates them and ensure that the rewards for volunteering are worth the effort. You might also want to ask why they seem like they're doing the minimum; maybe they don't know or they don't think they are skilled enough or some other reason.

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If someone’s just coasting, let them go. One disengaged team member can tank morale and momentum faster than you think—this isn’t daycare, it’s work.

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What is your goal? Not everyone wants to volunteer or innovate. If you feel like they are capable of doing more, Give them more work, over time.

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If they're not pulling their share of the work, including volunteering occasionally, then they're not doing their job. They might be hitting deadlines and being polite, but being part of a team means sometimes doing a little more than what is asked of you directly. At some point in every organization, as workers we'll be expected to do more than just the minimum. The goal is to understand what drives them and try to connect with them personally, and use that to help motivate them. Building a relationship with them as an individual really helps as well. People are less likely to bail on their coworkers when the chips are down when they have a personal relationship with each other.

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