It’s a new year, and that means that a lot of employees are burnt-out and hitting the job market. So how can you ensure that you minimize churn at your organization both this season and this year?
Here are three easy tips from a recent Forbes article and Kronos survey on minimizing employee burn-out.
1. Plug Employees Into Culture.
While onboarding presents a logical opportunity for ensuring employees are immersed in your culture, even the longest tenured employee needs to be engaged. Whether it’s a monthly employee meeting, a full-company party or core values that each employee should use as their professional compass, make it easy for employees to put down roots in your organization.
Create opportunities for each employee to connect individually with the company and its culture. That connection may come as a unique responsibility, or ensuring that executives and team leads are approachable. Whether the connections are big or small, ensuring a personal connection through company culture is critical to minimizing burn-out. Personal connection motivates employees to work through tough stretches with passion, with an eye on the greater purpose.
2. Work Hard, Rest Hard.
Making sure employees are mentally and physically prepared for a busy season or stretch of time allows employees to be prepared against burn-out. Preparations and motivation allows them to push through tough stretches by showing them how their hard work will affect the company’s bottom line.
However, when the tough stretches are over, balance the time by allowing employees to rest as hard as they worked. If employees were putting in long hours, working through lunch and sacrificing time with their families, make sure you give back. Whether it’s allowing employees an opportunity to work a short day once the busy period is over, or even take a whole day off, on the company, giving back the time is important.
These types of gestures have relatively low impact on the company and have a huge impact on the employee perception of the employer. It allows an employee to find the connection with the company and recognize that as an employee gives to the company, the employer will take notice and give back beyond compensation.
3. Make Autonomy a Priority.
Nothing feels worse to an employee than not being able to make autonomous decisions. Don’t burn employees out by micro-managing them. It is critical to train managers at all levels and departments to encourage employees to spread their wings and feel permitted to make decisions on their own.
This isn’t to say that employees shouldn’t also feel secure when asking for help when they need it. Managers need to be supportive, but not hovering. Employees should be enabled to learn and grow within their roles to gain autonomy as their experience grows. This environment feeds a positive company culture that increases retention rates and reduces churn.
According to the Kronos survey we mentioned at the beginning of the post, 46% of employers who responded cited employee burn-out as accounting for at least half of their total employees turnover annually. Burn-out is avoidable, treat your employees with respect, grow culture and employee retention rates will improve.
What are you doing to decrease employee burn-out?
Tell us in the comments below!
