10 Warning Signs You’re Becoming Complacent At Work

As you go through the motions day in and day out, you may not realize what others can clearly see from the outside. You’re becoming complacent at work, but if you aspire to advance professionally you need to snap out of it. Here are a few signs that being too comfortable is threatening your career growth.

You don’t seek promotions

Avoiding promotions is a tell-tale sign that you’re becoming complacent in your current job. You may subconsciously fear responsibility or dislike your job altogether. Regardless of your reason, purposely forgoing opportunities to move up is something you need to address.

You’re content with a tiny yearly raise

Job movement, promotions and merit raises are what increase your salary. Without these aforementioned increases, you’re probably only getting small percentage raises each year. Have you learned to accept these tiny raises as your only form of salary growth? It may be a sign you’ve checked out professionally.

People disappear around you

When new staff has been hired, fired and promoted and you’re still in the same spot it’s likely a sign that you’ve become comfortable. Especially when someone you’ve trained becomes your superior. Why them and not you? Are you too complacent where you are now to try for advancement?

You avoid new assignments at all costs

When your boss gives out new tasks you run from them like the plague. You like to keep your work as routine as possible. You figure new work will only disturb your regular schedule of assignments, so it’s best to avoid it.

You do the bare minimum to get by 

In the past, you tried to go above and beyond at all times to make a good impression. Now you just do the very least required to complete the work. Nothing more and nothing less. After all, you know you can get by without putting in the extra effort, so why do more?

You go with the flow

You’ve started to run on autopilot. You don’t ask questions or offer new ideas to the group. You don’t make any suggestions to improve your department. And when new systems or ideas roll out, you learn it and go with the flow even if you have reservations.

You miss out on perks

You’re less engaged at work and you’ve stopped investing in yourself. Your job offers perks like tuition and course reimbursement or continued training opportunities to advance in-house. But you haven’t taken advantage of the opportunities for one reason or another.

Your work performance isn’t consistent

You haven’t received a raving review in a while. The feedback you get on your work is positive, but not great. You used to be highly praised by the people around you. At some point you fell off and you began coasting. Still, you reference your past amazing reviews to validate your worth as an employee.

You take the rules less seriously

You don’t take company policy for face value anymore because you know how far you can push the limits without getting noticed. You call out more often and you don’t feel bad about it. You interpret the dress code loosely compared to your earlier years with the company. Or you show up for work a few minutes late each day because you know you can sneak through the back door.

You’re not networking

At work you keep to yourself and avoid getting to know upper management any more than you already do. Outside of work you don’t make any effort to add interesting people to your contact list. You haven’t joined professional organizations or renewed your memberships in years.

How can you recover?

It’s true that not everyone has future aspirations to climb far up the corporate ladder. In this case, finding a comfortable position that pays well enough is the primary professional goal. And that’s perfectly okay.

But for those who dream of advancement, recognizing that you’re too comfortable in your job is the first step to making a change. Think about why you’re complacent, detached or unmotivated to excel. Once you understand the reasons behind your actions you can identify areas where you can improve to start advancing again.