Perhaps the most unfortunate part of on-the-job boredom, burn out, and fatigue is that your star employees are most likely to experience it. Sometimes these symptoms are easy to recognize. Missed deadlines, changes in demeanor, and tardiness are all examples of possible signals. Although these behaviors could be attributed to family problems or medical issues, they could also be caused by stress or exhaustion and are worth the extra attention. Knowing what triggers burnout can help you understand whether an employee is suffering from it. Additionally, being aware of causes can help you determine solutions. Unrealistic goals and deadlines, or thinking your hard work goes unnoticed can all contribute to boredom, stress, exhaustion, and frustration. What can you do to combat burnout in the workplace so you don’t risk losing your top performing employees?
Communicate
Create an open-door policy for your employees to discuss concerns and issues including feeling overworked, bored, or stressed out. If you begin to notice signs of burnout, meet with the employee one on one and provide an opportunity for the employee to vent and voice frustrations, opinions, and worries in complete confidence. Once you know what’s causing these feelings, you can work together to determine what changes need to be made.
Shake things up.
Breaking the monotony can benefit your employees and your business, especially when they are performing the same tasks repeatedly. Teaching employees typical duties of counterparts can keep work interesting for employees and allow them to better help one another. Another way to combat repetition is to establish enjoyable group activities to make the workplace more fun. If there is absolutely no time during work hours, consider arranging an after work get together such as a bowling night or company picnic.
Offer help.
In some cases, employees become overwhelmed, and there is no easy fix for this form of job burnout. In situations like these, take the time to look at the big picture to determine the best course of action. Further training, readjustments of workloads, or editing job descriptions may be necessary.
The best employees are the employees most likely to experience burnout. Often, management and colleagues alike will begin to expect more from employees who continuously give their all than they do from those who perform at a more basic level. The points mentioned above can help combat these feelings of stress and anxiety before they become too much for employees to handle. If you are in need of further information on maintaining workplace morale, contact the experts at Staffers today!
