Breadcrumbing is a corporate practice in which the employee is provided the bare minimum or less than optimal information, feedback, rewards by the manager, keeping it a one-way communication.
The employee feels dejected, unvalued and confused. He has to work harder due to the opacity and limited set of information. He is kept in the dark as crucial information is not shared with him easily. There is no encouragement or listening to new ideas.

Breadcrumbed At Work

<ul>
<li>The employee cannot invest in a career if there is no visible sign of a career in the first place. The employee feels disposable and undervalued in the organization, with the manager ghosting him at times.</li>
<li>Important information is thrust upon the employee, rather than taking his opinion first.</li>
<li>There is no interest of the employer in employee development or empowerment.</li>
</ul>

The Opposite Of Empowered

<div>
As we head into 2020, we're running the best, most insightful and most essential Worklife stories from 2019. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/tags/best-of-2019">Read all of the year's biggest hits here.</a> Stop breadcrumbing me! Our modern dating vocabulary is making its way into our work lexicon, and it's bringing more life and colour to the way we describe our experiences. Have you ever been ghosted by a potential employer? Or have you <a href="http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20190118-how-people-are-ghosting-their-employers">ghosted them</a>? Now, thanks to the latest series of the reality TV show Love Island, we have a new word for an old practice: breadcrumbing.
"Breadcrumbing is when you leave little bits of bread for someone. It's a way of saying when you lead someone on," explains Love Island host Caroline Flack. These small amounts of communication, encouragement or rewards ultimately might leave the recipient empty-handed.
Whether you're being strung along in a drawn-out hiring process or your existing employer is leading you on, breadcrumbing gives you "just enough" to keep you on the line. You can see it when your manager drops hints about new projects, raises or promotions that may - or may not - ever materialise.
"Breadcrumbing is really a modern term for what we used to call intermittent reinforcement, which is one of the strongest ways to develop someone's behaviour," says B Lynn Ware, an industrial/organisational psychologist and the CEO of a leadership consultancy in California. She explains that successful managers use behavioural reinforcement to develop their staff through appropriate and proportional recognition and rewards.
But what if they're not actually using it for employee development? It may be because employers are not aware of the range of opportunities available for top talent. The <a href="https://workinstitute.com/about-us/news-events/articleid/2259/2018%20retention%20report">2018 Employee Retention Report</a> by the Work Institute, an employee research company, found that in the US, 40% of all turnover in 2017 was of employees who quit within their first year of employment. This was up from 34% in 2016. According to the report, the rise in turnover shows that employees have greater flexibility to find better employment elsewhere.
Alternatively, "it could be that the employee is not considered top talent," says Ware. "Those people don't get recognition when they deserve it, because the employer is hoping they leave on their own." The Work Institute report identified that turnover costs employers, on average, 33% of the employee's base pay. Perhaps this is why it seems better to string along a less-than-perfect employee rather than immediately undergo the costs of replacing them.
So how can you tell when you're being breadcrumbed, and what should you do about it?
</div>

As we head into 2020, we're running the best, most insightful and most essential Worklife stories from 2019. Read all of the year's biggest hits here. Stop breadcrumbing me! Our modern dating vocabulary is making its way into our work lexicon, and it's bringing more life and colour to the way we describe our experiences.

remotework

Remote Work

career

Career

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

As we head into 2020, we're running the best, most insightful and most essential Worklife stories from 2019. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/tags/best-of-2019">Read all of the year's biggest hits here. </a> Stop breadcrumbing me! Our modern dating vocabulary is making its way into our work lexicon, and it's bringing more life and colour to the way we describe our experiences. Have you ever been ghosted by a potential employer? Or have you <a href="http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20190118-how-people-are-ghosting-their-employers">ghosted them </a>? Now, thanks to the latest series of the reality TV show Love Island, we have a new word for an old practice: breadcrumbing.

"Breadcrumbing is when you leave little bits of bread for someone. It's a way of saying when you lead someone on," explains Love Island host Caroline Flack. These small amounts of communication, encouragement or rewards ultimately might leave the recipient empty-handed. Whether you're being strung along in a drawn-out hiring process or your existing employer is leading you on, breadcrumbing gives you "just enough" to keep you on the line. You can see it when your manager drops hints about new projects, raises or promotions that may - or may not - ever materialise.

"Breadcrumbing is really a modern term for what we used to call intermittent reinforcement, which is one of the strongest ways to develop someone's behaviour," says B Lynn Ware, an industrial/organisational psychologist and the CEO of a leadership consultancy in California. She explains that successful managers use behavioural reinforcement to develop their staff through appropriate and proportional recognition and rewards.

But what if they're not actually using it for employee development? It may be because employers are not aware of the range of opportunities available for top talent. The <a href="https://workinstitute.com/about-us/news-events/articleid/2259/2018%20retention%20report">2018 Employee Retention Report </a>by the Work Institute, an employee research company, found that in the US, 40% of all turnover in 2017 was of employees who quit within their first year of employment. This was up from 34% in 2016. According to the report, the rise in turnover shows that employees have greater flexibility to find better employment elsewhere.

Alternatively, "it could be that the employee is not considered top talent," says Ware. "Those people don't get recognition when they deserve it, because the employer is hoping they leave on their own." The Work Institute report identified that turnover costs employers, on average, 33% of the employee's base pay. Perhaps this is why it seems better to string along a less-than-perfect employee rather than immediately undergo the costs of replacing them.

How to tell if you're being 'breadcrumbed' at work

Breadcrumbed At Work

The Opposite Of Empowered

CURATED BY

Related collections

More like this