Work-Life Balance

Signs of low employee morale in your team

ernkim01 — Wed, 06 May 2020 03:19:46 +0000

Signs of low employee morale in your team ernkim01 6 May 2020

Employee morale, aka the mood in your workplace, is high when workers are positive about their work environment.

Positivity amongst employees leads to a boost in productivity, better relationships with team members and managers, greater staff retention, a stronger job performance and, yes, even laughter.

If challenges arise amongst the workforce, managers can learn to spot potential issues with staff morale and deal with them head on before the problem leads to an exodus of top performers.

Here are five warning signs of low employee morale in the workplace — and ways to counteract it:

1. Changes in attitude

If you have unhappy employees on your team, it will show. Look for red flags — increased negativity, high or increased rates of absenteeism, or reduced cooperation or commitment.

Checking in with workers on a regular basis will help you gauge low employee morale and address budding problems.

2. An active grapevine of low employee morale

When communication is scarce, gossip, misinformation and conflict flourish. Even if you have bad news to share or don’t have all the answers, honesty is still the best policy.

The more team members can rely on accurate information, the less grist they’ll have for the rumor mill. Good communication will help turn the negative into positive.

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3. Lack of initiative

Unmotivated employees go through the motions rather than taking an active seat at the table. Foster an ownership environment in which people have the expectations that they should take the initiative, demonstrate leadership and solve problems in creative ways.

Not only will that improve employee morale at your company, but it will help your workforce thrive in any kind of economy.

4. Scarce rewards

Step up efforts to offer employee recognition with praise, low-cost awards and spot bonuses for accomplishments.

Make rewards personal, and give them as soon as possible after an achievement to raise workplace morale and lower staff turnover.

5. Poor performance

Low morale can quickly affect a team’s quality of work. Signs of trouble include missed deadlines, an increase in mistakes or a decline in service levels.

Ask your team members if they feel burdened by the amount of work they have to do. Take full responsibility for providing the support they need and creating a positive work environment.

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How to keep employees engaged through job redesign

ernkim01 — Tue, 05 May 2020 23:58:09 +0000

How to keep employees engaged through job redesign ernkim01 6 May 2020

As a manager, you spend a lot of time in the hiring process trying to gauge whether a candidate will be a solid fit for the role. This assessment is essential. You want to ensure your new employee will be successful — and you want to avoid making a costly bad hire.

However, given how quickly business and the nature of work are changing, your determination of “candidate-job fit” at the time of hire may not hold up for long. Employees’ skill sets, interests and career goals can evolve fast. So, their roles and responsibilities need to evolve, too.

Enter job enrichment and job enlargement — two facets of the job redesign process. Through job redesign, you can keep employees engaged and feeling valued. That can help to boost their productivity and morale, as well as your company’s retention efforts.

Before we take a closer look at the differences between job enrichment and job enlargement, it’s important to break down how to keep employees engaged through a possible job redesign:

How to keep employees engaged

The future may offer a world where financial professionals and AI work together, each playing to the other’s strengths. This will require a redesign of many jobs so that human workers can move away from routine tasks to focus more on strategic projects.

Increasing employees’ ability to future-proof their careers and preparing your business for the future is a twofold advantage of job redesign. Here are three other benefits:

Helping your employees avoid boredom and burnout

Machines don’t get tired of repetitive tasks; people do. Employees need some variety in their work, with new responsibilities and learning opportunities to challenge them. Job redesign can prevent the kind of work burnout that causes people to grow frustrated and fatigued — and look for other positions.

Allowing your business to do more with less

Every manager is under pressure to increase their team’s efficiency. Sometimes, greater efficiency can be realised by redesigning jobs, so that employees can focus more on tasks that add value, and less on ones that don’t. (Again, the rise of job automation and the use of emerging technologies like AI will only increase the need to rethink the everyday responsibilities of many employees.)

Making the need to adapt to change less daunting

Occasionally, changes in the organisation’s business goals, or how the company operates, will demand that you explore redesigning jobs for some team members. Even if the change is unexpected and disruptive, the job redesign process still can be positioned as an opportunity. Employees have the chance to gain new skills, move out of their comfort zone — and shine.

Job enlargement vs. job enrichment

Now, as for the difference between job enlargement and job enrichment, here’s a quick explanation:

Job enlargement is giving additional duties to an employee. These new tasks are in line with the worker’s existing duties. Think of it as a horizontal expansion of a job.

Enrichment, meanwhile, involves adding more responsibility and autonomy to a role. This is a vertical expansion of a job, moving the employee closer towards the management tier.

How do you decide which approach is best? Here’s an example: Let’s say you manage a team of business analysts. One of your top analysts complains that she’s tired of running the same reports each month, and she’s struggling to stay motivated. In response, you could:

Use job enlargement to give the analyst some new responsibilities, such as preparing more complex reports or presenting data directly to executive management. These tasks add some variety to the employee’s job but are still in her wheelhouse.
Alternatively, you could use job enrichment to challenge the analyst a bit more. For instance, you could assign a new project that requires collaborating with the IT team on improvement projects like enhanced data collection or AI implementation. Job enrichment will allow the business analyst to develop new skills, and potentially, prepare her for a management role.

Do’s and don’ts of job redesign

While job redesign may sound straightforward, it isn’t always easy to implement. First, you need to be in tune with your employees’ interests and abilities — and know whether they are open to and ready for either job enrichment or job enlargement. Here are a few do’s and don’ts to keep in mind as you consider whether to use job redesign as a strategy to keep employees engaged:

Do discuss the opportunity with employees one-to-one

Your team members probably have some ideas already about how they would like to change their roles and responsibilities. So, as a first step, talk with them one-to-one to get their input. Ask them where they might excel and how they think they could add the most value to the organisation.

Don’t fail to think about the future

When redesigning a job, consider how the position might evolve in the near term. How would technological advances or a new business direction impact the role? You may not be able to fully future-proof a position, but you can think about what might be required further down the line.

Also, avoid over-tailoring job enrichment or job enlargement opportunities. If you redesign a job to suit a specific individual, then you may face some organisational challenges if that person leaves. So, when redesigning jobs, think about how changes to a role could benefit the whole team, and not just how they might increase one person’s job satisfaction.

Do offer support and mentoring

A job redesign may require a transition period, especially if the employee is assuming new responsibilities through the job enrichment path. So, give every team member in a redesigned role the best chance of success by offering coaching, mentoring and additional training, as needed.

Backed by good planning and communication — and appropriate support — job enlargement or job enrichment can help you learn how to keep employees engaged and thus, motivated to stay with your organisation for the long term. Your workers can gain new skills and experience by either expanding their responsibilities or taking on more complex challenges. Either way, they’ll be able to add even more value to your business.

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How to boost employee morale during times of uncertainty

stekuy01 — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 04:01:48 +0000

How to boost employee morale during times of uncertainty stekuy01 8 April 2020

During times of uncertainty, it’s important for managers to over-communicate with their teams and keep them updated on the state of the business and operational plans.

Remember to remain transparent, check in often, listen and ask for feedback. Otherwise, you could start to see a dip in employee morale.

Morale is high when workers are feeling optimistic — which in turn leads to a boost in productivity, better relationships with team members and managers, greater staff retention, a stronger job performance and, yes, even laughter.

Managers can learn to spot potential morale issues and deal with them head on. Here are some red flags to look for and suggestions on how to address them.

1. Changes in attitude

If you have unhappy employees on your team, it will show. Increased negativity, high or growing rates of absenteeism, and reduced cooperation or commitment can be all be a tip-off.

Checking in with workers on a regular basis will help you gauge morale and address budding problems.

2. An active grapevine

When communication is scarce, gossip, misinformation and conflict flourish. Even if you have bad news to share or don’t have all the answers, honesty is still the best policy.

The more team members can rely on accurate information, the less grist they’ll have for the rumor mill. Good communication will help turn the negative into positive.

3. Lack of initiative

Unmotivated employees go through the motions rather than taking an active seat at the table. As a manager, model behavior that will foster an environment where teams take the initiative, demonstrate leadership and solve problems in creative ways.

Not only will that improve employee morale at your company, but it will help your workforce thrive in any kind of economy.

4. Scarce rewards

Everyone wants to know their good work is respected and appreciated. Step up efforts to offer employee recognition with praise, low-cost awards and spot bonuses for accomplishments.

Make rewards personal and give them as soon as possible after an achievement.

5. Poor performance

Low morale can quickly affect a team’s quality of work. Signs of trouble include missed deadlines, an increase in mistakes or a decline in service levels.

Ask your team members if they feel burdened by the amount of work they have on their plate, and provide the support they need to be a success.

There’s no shortage of ways to improve staff morale, but actions should revolve around making workers feel valued and engaged.

Revisit your policies and staff retention strategies, and take steps to build a work environment that will help employees feel motivated and happy to come to work every day.

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Preventing employee burnout when you have a skeleton staff

stekuy01 — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 04:00:24 +0000

Preventing employee burnout when you have a skeleton staff stekuy01 31 March 2020

Helping your employees avoid work burnout isn’t just good for morale, it’s also good for your organisation’s bottom line.

Overwork or stress leading to physical and mental exhaustion can produce disengaged workers who will start looking for other jobs.

And staff turnover can come with a high price: It takes time and money to find, hire and train new employees – especially when a company has earned a reputation as a tough place to work.

When some of your employees are on vacation, out on sick leave or have recently decided to leave the organisation, it’s likely your remaining staff will feel overworked. Not only is your business’s productivity diminished, but additional stress can produce exhausted workers who will soon become increasingly disengaged.

Here are some tips to help you prevent or counter employee exhaustion and exasperation:

1. Reassess roles

Make sure your employees are in positions that suit their strengths and interests, and provide them with clearly defined roles and expectations. Taking these steps will help ensure workers don’t become frustrated laboring at tasks they’re not well-suited for.

Also be sure to communicate with your team on a regular basis and keep members in the loop when priorities change. Including employees in the planning process allows them to become invested in a project’s success, and by soliciting their expertise, you are reinforcing their value to the organisation.

2. Be realistic

Take a step back and ask yourself some questions. Are your employees tackling doable workloads? Does everyone have all the resources and information they need to handle their projects? One fast path to burnout is to consistently dole out overly ambitious or unclear assignments that even the most skilled professional would have trouble completing.

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3. Support — and model — work-life balance

Employees who like their jobs consistently cite work-life balance as one of the most valuable aspects of their organisation’s culture. Respecting the obligations and interests that occupy workers outside of the office helps prevent burnout at work.

Where possible, consider offering alternative working arrangements, such as telecommuting or flextime, to help your employees juggle personal and professional responsibilities. Remind both remote and on-site employees to take care of themselves. Unrelenting stress doesn’t exactly fuel happiness or efficiency. Encourage your team to take periodic breaks to go for a walk or simply step outside for some fresh air.

Perhaps most importantly, serve as a role model. Manage your time effectively so your employees see that you take your commitment to work-life balance seriously. Don’t encourage your direct reports to leave at 5:30 p.m. only to stay late yourself. Also, don’t make your team members feel tethered to their jobs by sending late-night or weekend emails.

When it comes to vacations, manage schedules so employees can truly enjoy their time off without feeling guilty for unduly burdening colleagues.

4. Recognise hard work

Feeling appreciated and well-compensated can make challenging workloads easier to take.

Put simply, a competitive salary is critical for keeping employees happy. And in today’s employment market, your ability to retain talent is tied closely to the salary, benefits and perks you provide. Is it time for you to raise salaries?

Also, remember that frequently saying “thank you” can go a long way toward preventing burnout. Offering appreciation can be as simple as a mention at a staff meeting or as involved as a nomination of your team for internal and external awards.

If they do something well, take notice. If you implement ideas submitted by your employees, give them credit.

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