“Rage applying” is a term that has only recently come to the fore (originally appearing on TikTok in December of 2022).
It is a behavior that a deeply frustrated employee may engage in after something negative happens at work, resulting in the employee responding by firing off a number of internet job applications back-to-back.
It presents a bit of a comical image if you imagine it although I am sure the employee doing it is in no such mood.
The bottom line is that it’s not great, and your best hope of keeping things like that from happening is to be proactive and communicate regularly with the people in your employ.
If you have genuine relationships with the people who work for you, then you’ll be able to spot dissatisfaction in its early stages and make a course correction before it ever gets to this level.
Maybe it’s stress. Maybe it’s that your employees are feeling underappreciated? Maybe it’s an employee that’s feeling on edge because of personal circumstances making work life stressful?
Whatever is leading to “rage applying”, the sooner you find out for certain, the sooner you can take steps to fix it. And speaking of fixing it, if you’re not running a robust Reward and Recognition program for your employees, you should be!
Gifts that show your appreciation can be a great way to boost morale. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy.
In fact, it could be something as simple as candy!