Coleman Technologies Blog

More than ever, it is important for your employees to have positive work experiences. People have many more resources to find new work today, and with so many people willing to find the “right fit” it can be quite expensive for organizations. While the best way is always to compensate people well, if you are facing a situation where you need to be creative to keep your people around, we have three suggestions. 

Just How Expensive is a High Turnover Rate?

You may not think that the process of hiring and training new employees has a large price tag, but if you consider that new employees are going to be much less productive as they get up to speed (if they do), it’s probably going to cost you more than you’d like to onboard new talent. Some studies have put this number at 1-to-1.5 times the position’s salary for a worker that has been with your organization for five years. This number increases the more responsibilities the employee has. That’s a lot of money to spend just to get a fraction of the productivity. 

Suggestions to Help You Build Positive Work Experiences

We should preface this with a fact: You’re not always going to please everyone. Having a couple of people that are questionable (or bad) fits for your business jump ship is going to happen. That said, there are some things that an organization can do to make their workers’ experience more meaningful. Here are a few:

Set a Clear Mission and Stick to It

One of the most frustrating things for employees at any business is when things take huge shifts without much notice. That includes hiring/firing people, operational changes, and policies and procedures that are not well thought out or enforced. This is not just an employee/employer problem, this is an organizational problem. For the good of your business, identify your organization’s long term goals and don’t change them. Sure, you will have to alter some things in the short term to react to market changes, but overall, the people that work for you should know what all their time and effort is being used for. 

Embrace People’s Ideas

No one knows your business better than the people that work on it. You might find problems with this, but the whole picture can be painted by your staff if you just listen. By giving your employees a voice, you will gain more insight than you could ever hope to through analytics. They not only will give you their perspective in regard to their jobs, they will also let you know about the inefficiencies that keep them from being as productive as they’d like. People typically like to be a part of something special, so the more they are involved in the overall process that goes into decision making, the more positively they will view their work experience. 

Encourage Work Relationships

We’re not talking about encouraging your workers to date, but there is no reason your workers can’t be friends. Without a doubt, people want to work alongside people they respect and like. Of course, co-workers are always hit or miss. The more a business can create situations where friendships and relationships can develop, the more actual teamwork you are going to have. Some of the best ways to do this is to conduct personality assessments and then try to assign work that will have like-minded people working with each other. Not all people will fit together, but for the most part the more people can relate to their co-workers the more their work will be improved and the happier they will be working alongside their peers. This is an indispensable thing in a workplace where a lot of things are boiled down to dollars and cents. 

Your business is not just your products and your services. It is all the people that make up the ability to fulfill your customer’s needs. At Coleman Technologies, we can help build the technology that can help foster positive work relationships and keep your employees working for you. Give us a call today at (604) 513-9428 to learn more. 

Every business has different types of workers; often to management’s chagrin. Ideally, all of an organization’s workers would be enthusiastic about their jobs and the status of a business as a whole. Unfortunately, people don’t always have like minds about the state of things and can see their morale reduced and their productivity wane. 

Keeping your people engaged does more than build a more productive business; it saves money. Recruiting and onboarding new talent is extraordinarily expensive and time consuming, so retaining the talent you acquire is all the more important.

There are a few things any business can do to engage their employees a little better and get them to feel a little more invested, even if they work remotely. Let’s take a look at a few

Promote Work/Life Balance

In order for your business to find success, your people have to work, that is undeniable. Ironically, the best way for people to find the focus at work is to have a solid work/life balance. Today’s businesses tend to have workforces that are much more distributed than businesses of the past, and that can wreak havoc on a business’ ability to promote a dedicated company culture. It can also cause workers to work longer hours, which encourages the overwhelming pressure that business is all around them all the time, a major contributor to burnout. 

There are plenty of ways that an organization can assist their employees improve their work/life balance. They include:

• Value productivity over time - One of the biggest problems managers cause is looking at the amount of time that an employee works rather than what they do in the time that they work. As we stated before, your business needs productivity, they don’t necessarily rely on employees to put in workweeks that run counterproductive to their mental well-being. 
• Encourage breaks - When you are busy, work can get difficult to get away from. Encouraging your staff to take breaks to get away from the work for a little bit not only gives them a respite from the grind, but will give them a chance to use their phones, because you know they are going to. 
• Paid time off - Most places require a business to provide some paid time off, but the more paid time that you can provide your staff, the more they can enjoy their lives outside of the workplace. Having five days of sick/vacation time is nice, but having more allows people to take a vacation, manage their outside life better; and, the better they are at that, the more effective they will be at work.  

Gamify the Workplace

One of the best ways to get superior employee engagement is to gamify your workplace. This is really a hit with the younger workforce. The theory behind gamification is that if you give everything your team does a points system and then give out prizes for the employees that produce the best work, you will get people competing for those prizes and the whole lot of work will improve. Here are three benefits to gamifying your workplace:

Improve Engagement

Part of boosting morale is improving engagement, and nothing gets people’s productive juices flowing quite as much as an open competition. The more fun a person can have while doing work, the more engaged with that work they will be. 

Recognize Excellence

A big problem that many workers have at work is that they can excel at their job and it is completely taken for granted. By gamifying your workplace, the employees that are doing the most to push your business’ initiatives forward will presumably rank high on the gamification leaderboard. This not only gives top performers the recognition they deserve, it also can work to make a lot of internal business decisions simpler. 

Improve Efficiency

When people compete for prizes, they tend to do their best to win those prizes. This means that more will get done faster. This improved efficiency is great for your business as it can speed business up and create holistic growth. The more efficient a business is, the more productive it is. The more productive a business is, the better the business performs. 

When in Doubt, Pay Better

This might be the last thing a business owner wants to hear, but this is one of the leading reasons that an employee will look for another job. If you want to avoid that, pizza parties and pats on the back will only go so far—you need to pay them competitively.

If you would like more information about how technology can be used to improve your business and help build a more productive, fun, and engaging work environment, give Coleman Technologies a call today at (604) 513-9428.

Burn out? 

Oh, no! That certainly wouldn’t be a good thing… but how can you prevent such a thing from happening in the workplace, when you really can’t tell if workplace stress has worn them down, or if it was a more personal issue? You can’t keep things from influencing their personal lives, after all. 

Maybe they just need to get more sleep, or something.

Besides, what if you just happen to work in an industry that creates more stress upon its workers by nature of the work? It isn’t as though you can help that, either.

Sure, that’s fair.

You can’t be expected to be in control of your employees’ personal lives… but you should be in control of their professional environment.

What Leads to Employee Burnout?

While general stress can contribute to burnout, certain job factors and features can create “special” kinds of stress that contribute specifically to burnout tendencies. Let’s consider these factors briefly.

Non-Stop High Stress

Look, I’m not saying that a business should be a stress-free area. That just isn’t realistic.

However, businesses typically experience busy, stressful times and once those times are over, there is usually a period of time that employees get the chance to recover. Bookending stress with these low-stress times (and adequately compensating your team for their stress) can make employees feel better - but keeping them in a constant pressure-cooker certainly won’t.

Unclear and Unreasonable Tasks

How frustrating would a puzzle be without a picture on the box to reference?

Each and every time an employee is given an unclear task, they feel that same frustration. They’re just trying to do their job, but they can’t if it is unclear what that job is. It only gets worse if the tasks that they are assigned literally (yes, in the literal sense) can’t be done.

The more stress and frustration that builds up with tasks like these, the more likely burnout becomes.

Huge Consequences for Failure…

Some workplaces have higher stakes than others. For instance, you have those who work for child services, whose work frequently takes them into risky and heartbreaking situations.

People in positions like that have a much more stressful job than, say, a fortune cookie writer or the greeter at a superstore. It probably wouldn’t surprise you to hear that high-stakes workplaces frequently see higher rates of burnout.

...With No Recognition for Success

How would you feel if your considerable efforts were, day-in and day-out, overlooked? If you went above and beyond in everything you did, and not one word was said to you?

Chances are, you’d probably feel unappreciated, demoralized, and unmotivated. Workplaces like this can have a severe morale problem. 

Welcome to burnout.

Communication is Neither Efficient nor Effective

Without proper communication, any of the other problems your business is experiencing will only get much, much worse. Unclear and incomplete statements will make issues more complicated, especially if you are trying to deal with an employee’s issue.

As a result, demoralization and burnout become very real risks.

Lacking Leadership

Finally, if a strong, fair, and supportive leader isn’t present in the business, employees could be accelerated on their way to burnout by the lack of guidance the missing leader should be providing. Employees may feel like they aren’t getting something out of their employment - be it recognition, support, or job security - and swiftly lose the drive to perform well.

Clearly, there is no shortage of ways for an employee to reach the point of burnout… but how can you tell when one really has?

The Symptoms of Burnout

There are quite a few signs that can indicate if an employee is truly burning out, or if one is simply having an “off” day. I’m pretty confident that we’ve all felt and exhibited some of these signs - maybe even all of them - at one point at least.

How many of these symptoms have you seen among your employees?

• They feel distant from their work, cynical about what they do and who they do it with.
• They may be suffering from a variety of symptoms, including headaches, sour stomach, and intestinal issues.
• They have slipped in their tasks at work, but their home life is unaffected.
• They may keep themselves emotionally distant from their coworkers.
• They may lack creativity, and will have trouble concentrating.
• They are low energy, feel drained, and feel that they can’t cope.
• They are visibly frustrated and stressed.

Again, we’ve all had an “off” day, where these kinds of things are almost to be expected. It’s just a part of life.

It is when these symptoms have become chronic, stretching out beyond hours or days to weeks, that your employees may be suffering from burnout. Thanks to these symptoms, burned-out employees may appear depressed, and are actually at a higher risk of developing depression later on.

Why This Really Matters to You

So, why should you care?

Well, basic human decency aside, burnout can have some significant impacts upon your business itself. For instance, sick leave is much more commonly taken among employees who are burned-out, and they are also far more motivated to find another job.

If they are successful in the latter, you will need to spend the significant costs associated with hiring a new employee to replace them.

You also need to consider the “typical” state of your employees. They might actually be some of your top performers, simply struggling through a hard time. What impact on their productivity will your business be able to just absorb?

A burned-out employee in the wrong position can exacerbate the problem, too, as a burned-out manager can easily create a burned-out team… killing productivity and morale on a wider scale. 

You also need to consider the optics that burnout can produce - what business or potential employee would want anything to do with a business that has what is really a very visible issue?

(I certainly wouldn’t.)

Bringing basic human decency back into consideration, this condition can actually do a number on a human being. Not only can the influence of burnout impact an employee’s personal life and relationships, it makes them slightly more likely to visit the emergency room.

What You Can Do to Help a Burned-Out Employee

Keeping these warning signs in mind can help you to better spot when one of your employees is clearly going through a rough patch. While you may not see it as your job as their boss, it is your job as a fellow human being to offer them some support.

The easiest way to start this process? An honest conversation.

Discuss It with the Employee

Have an informal sit-down with this employee and just talk to them about it. Express your sincere worry for them as a person and offer your support with whatever they have been going through.

This support itself could help greatly, and if it is another personal issue, some personal time may be all it takes to help.

Redistribute the Workload

Even the most competent employee you have could potentially bite off more than they could chew. Whether they overstuff their schedules, offer to help with anything they can, or both… before long, this employee is going to fall behind schedule. 

You should go through that schedule with them, organizing it and trimming some of the fat to make sure it is humanly possible to accomplish, redistributing some tasks if need be, if not pausing them.

If your business has any collaboration tools, they can certainly come in handy here.

Teamwork makes the dream work, as some say, so if you can leverage your collaboration platform to help the task-redistribution process, it just makes sense to. You can make use of your platform as you manage your team, assigning them certain responsibilities and sharing the weight of their tasks between multiple resources, not just the one. 

Email is a great collaboration tool, but many employees can find the amount of emails they receive overwhelming, which (among other things) makes them less productive. You can help them out by introducing them to the different tools that email solutions can offer, like filters and rules to help organize incoming messages, and snoozing, to give them some uninterrupted time. 

Switch It Up

If you had an employee that was particularly good at Task A, it only makes sense that you would want them covering Task A as much as possible, right? 

However, designating that employee to Task A will likely make that employee pretty sick of Task A before long… and all the employees who always get Task B, or Task C will likely feel a similar way. Try rotating the responsibilities of your team on occasion, taking their preferences and goals into consideration.

Preventing Burnout in the First Place

As we’ve alluded to here, there are many warning signs of impending burnout issues, and we’ve barely scratched the surface here. Doing everything you can to keep burnout from happening at all is a reasonable strategy. 

Fix your company culture to focus on self-care. Try bringing in external experts to keep your employees happy and healthy, whether that’s a yoga instructor or accounting services. Remember that your employees have lives outside the workplace to live, and encourage them to enjoy them. 

These, and/or many, many other behaviors will help keep your employees engaged, motivated, and happy.

One great way to keep burnout from taking hold is to allow your employees to work how (and when and where) they work best. Remote working solutions can allow you to give your employees the freedom to shape their work habits around their lives.

While this may sound like a way to let employees slack off on work time, many employers have found the effects to productivity more than worth it… and employees have certainly shown their appreciation for the flexibility.

At the end of the day, your employees are going to feel a certain way - you can only try and help them feel more positively about their workplace by giving them better technology, more initiative, and an ear to turn to when needed.

We can help where the technology is concerned.

For solutions to help your employees be more productive, more communicative, and more successful, reach out to Coleman Technologies at (604) 513-9428.