Teamwork and Burnout
In the last year and a half, millions of employees from multiple sectors around the world have joined a mass exodus from the workplace. Many have tried explaining the mass exodus, but reports indicate it may be due to inadequate salaries, limited career advancement, poor work-life balances, general unhappiness with management or the company and numerous other reasons.
This so-called Great Resignation, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, has turned employment into a worker’s market. TikTok users have coined phrases such as “quiet quitting” and “act your wage” as employees find community with others who don’t feel properly valued or appreciated by their workplaces.
As employees decide what’s right for them, employers are having to reconsider what resally makes their company worth working for. If you feel like your business may be at risk of losing top talent, or you have already begun losing your best workers to the Great Resignation, it is probably time to consider some employee retention strategies.
Here are numbers 8 and 9 out of 15 effective strategies to boost employee job satisfaction and help you hold on to your best workers.
Create an Emphasis on Teamwork
Another key part of employee retention in many environments is creating a strong emphasis on teamwork. Creating chances for collaboration, including interdepartmental collaboration, can promote not only teamwork, but overall employee engagement.
Strong teamwork not only encourages bonding between coworkers, which can create a better overall culture, but it also drives higher overall performance. Good teamwork will help managers and employees pair up strengths and weaknesses within departments and more strategically balance the workload.
Great teamwork creates a bond among the individuals, and in the majority of cases, encourages participation and collaboration for the good of the team, putting personal objectives to one side.
Being part of a team can be motivational and rewarding. However, it is important that team leaders keep an eye on members so that no one is isolated or left behind. They also need to be capable of stepping in and resolving issues between members to keep the common goal in focus.
Reduce Employee Burnout
A 2022 Gallup report, Employee Burnout: Causes and Cures, found that 76% of employees sometimes experience burnout on the job and 28% stating they feel burnout “often” or “always.”
While it is often assumed as burnout is caused by overwork and can be solved by taking days off or reducing work hours.
Gallup’s study found burnout is actually more influenced by how employees experience their workload than the literal number of hours they work. Employees who feel more engaged by their work, who are properly recognised and rewarded and who are offered better job flexibility via reduced hours, remote work or flexible scheduling actually report higher well-being.
The Gallup report found the top five factors that lead to employee burnout are:
Unfair treatment at work
Unmanageable workload
Unclear communication from management
Lack of manager support
Unreasonable time pressure
Developing and improving your overall company culture, building better employee engagement, looking for ways to engender teamwork and offering clear communication, consistent management and transparency will all help reduce employee burnout.
Additionally, providing wellness offerings and other perks can greatly help with employee retention. Why not consider offering a half hour massage at work, or starting yoga classes? These simple low cost initiatives can deliver a great return on investment.
The bottom line here is that the efforts you make to promote passion in the workplace through positive feedback and recognition long with wellbeing initiatives, whether to individuals or teams, will have an impact on employee engagement, leading to reduced absenteeism and turnover, improved productivity and greater customer experience, all of which will positively impact your brand and bottom line.
For more information on how to inspire your team, email us at info@browniepoints.com.au
Tony Delaney, CEO Brownie Points
