6 tips for a manager to protect employees from stress and burnout

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

We know for sure: coping with your own stress is quite difficult. But being a leader is even more difficult because you need to make sure your team members remain in good spirits and are productive. Here's how to help your employees avoid feelings of stress, burnout, and fragmentation.

The workflow is becoming more and more complex. Since many of us actually work 24/7, stress and burnout are commonplace. Staying productive and efficient when you are under tremendous pressure can be very difficult.

It is unlikely that the intensity of our workflow will change any time soon. Therefore, you need to increase the ability to resist pressure and become more stable emotionally.

The manager should focus on personal growth and employee development.

Harvard Business School believes that investing in colleagues is the first and most important step in helping them unleash their creativity, increase their potential, and be productive all the time.

1. Create a sense of well-being

Overall stress levels are on the rise globally. A Regus Group survey of 22,000 businesspeople in 100 countries found that they are all much closer to burnout than they were five years ago.

Stress can be contagious. But the opposite is also true: when one of the team members feels happy and healthy, that feeling spreads to other employees.

The Gallup team monitored 105 work teams over six three-month periods. As a result, it was concluded that those team members who talked about their well-being were able to convey this feeling to colleagues in 20% of cases.

You need to understand what exactly leads to a feeling of well-being and make these practices a priority for your team and yourself. This could be personal growth training, additional time for employee training, exercise, a new approach to meeting, flexible schedules for your colleagues.

2. Let it be offline outside of business hours

Most of the employees work not only in the office. According to research, they also perform certain work tasks in their spare time. This is due, in part, to the fact that many people have difficulty disconnecting from work, which in turn leads to burnout, kills productivity, and makes your colleagues unhappy.

The harsh business culture requires us to be constantly on the alert, as productive and efficient as possible. It does not take into account the time it takes a person to recuperate.

Even the best athletes in the world take time off.

Therefore, you need to set a time frame: demand the maximum from your subordinates during office hours and not contact them on business issues after the end of working hours. Create rules: no work emails after 19:00 and no calls to employees at work on weekends.

3. Teach to fight chaos

Neuroscience studies show that meditation and thinking exercises help the brain develop. It also makes it easier for us to develop healthy habits that promote emotional stability and productivity both at work and in life.

Leaders who take these facts into account drive high productivity and help their colleagues avoid stress. In this case, you do not need to be an expert in psychology, you can turn to modern technology. Try to train on any applications, use devices and pass this experience on to others. You might like the Calm or Headspace apps.

4. Give up multitasking

Multitasking is a myth. People cannot be efficient by performing multiple processes at once. Neuroscientist and educational researcher JoAnn Deak believes that multitasking in most cases doubles the time it takes to complete a task or increases the number of mistakes.

Humans perform much better at consistent mono-tasking.

Managers can set tasks one after another, specifying the priority for each of them and ordering them so that none of the stages of execution overlaps with the other.

You should also learn how to separate urgent tasks from important ones and correctly explain to employees the status of each task.

5. Make sure your colleagues have time to relax

Taking a break during the day and taking vacations throughout the year will give people a break to recuperate. Even if your colleagues do not understand the importance of this step, explain to them that rest is necessary. If the work process is very stressful and you find it difficult to let go of the person, make a schedule so that you still give him at least a couple of days to recharge.

Pay special attention to those employees who try to be indispensable and be present always and everywhere. Their condition is most alarming, because it threatens with irrational behavior and distracted attention.

You should not think of your workflow as a marathon, but as a series of short sprints. After each such run, give people a break and recover.

For example, when talking about organizing work throughout the day, try doing 90-minute intensive, concentrated work sessions followed by 10-minute rest breaks.

Instead of worrying about how much time a person spends at their desk, consider how you can help them create an optimal schedule for maximum efficiency.

6. Learn empathy

Empathy, understanding and compassion are worthless, but they will only benefit you. You can improve employee productivity simply by being kind and empathetic to them. Research shows that it is the recognition of their achievements, mutual communication and cooperation that has the strongest positive impact on colleagues. The manager's ability to understand a person, his motivation, hopes, difficulties and the ability to support him throughout the entire work process bring maximum results and returns.

What will it give you

Aetna Insurance conducted an experiment. Twelve thousand of her employees took part in the program, taking into account all previous recommendations. They all showed productivity gains, and each saved the company $ 3,000.

In general terms, a study by the iOpener Institute shows that happy workers spend an average of 46% longer on their jobs and feel 65% more energized.

HR firm Towers Watson found that organizations where employees are experienced in interaction, emotional engagement, and energized from work earn twice as much as companies in which employees are emotionally drained.

Perhaps you are wondering: “Is it really my responsibility to take care of the emotional stability of employees? Teach them to be calm, for example? The assertion that employees should leave personal problems at home seems reasonable, but in practice it is completely impracticable.

The well-being of employees affects the entire team, including the manager. Therefore, you need to work to develop the mental and emotional abilities of your subordinates.

The development of each member of your team leads to the fact that the entire department will show high productivity and colleagues will learn to interact with each other. You create a healthy and positive environment. And this is the basis for effective work.