EASY SOLUTIONS TO LOW EMPLOYEE MORALE AND BURNOUT

Many small business owners struggle to keep their employees happy throughout the years. You might be the best boss in the world and your workplace can be a paragon of enlightenment and progressiveness, but sooner or later you will have to deal with low morale and employee burnout. It is just part of doing business. 

Always keep in mind that a happy employee is a more productive employee, so it behooves you to keep your employees content and engaged without burning them out. Low morale can also result in high employee turnover, which, in turn, can cost a business money when having to hire and train new employees. Studies show that it can take a new employee 1-2 years to reach the productivity level of an existing employee.

Fortunately there are ways to keep your existing employees happy and avoid burnout in the workplace. For starters, you can offer more flex time and the chance for certain employees to work from home, if feasible. According to polls, flex time is one of the most important, if not the most important, job perks. By allowing for flex time and/or working from home, you enable your employees to better manage their personal responsibilities, which makes for a happier, more productive employee. The percentage of people in the United States who work remotely full-time has increased 159% from 2017 to 2019, but if this is not an option, why not allow employees to work from home once in awhile?

Another surefire way to boost morale and combat burnout is to offer time away from the office, whether it be a mental health day or to do charitable work. Allowing employees to take time away from the office to do charitable work, such as helping to build a home for Habitat for Humanity, for example, can make them feel good knowing they are helping the less fortunate while reminding them of how good they actually have it. Other examples include collecting shoes for Soles4Souls, a not-for-profit global social enterprise committed to fighting poverty through the collection and distribution of shoes and clothing, or hosting a fundraiser for Operation Warm, whose mission is to provide brand new winter coats to children in need.

Additionally, get your employees outside, and yourself as well. This can be achieved with a wellness walk, which can also double as a walking meeting. This can provide much-needed relief from the confines of the office and the glare from the computer screen. Fresh air and vitamin D from the sun can work wonders on anyone’s mentality. 

Finally, you can promote mindfulness. Many offices today offer their employees mindfulness meditation sessions to alleviate stress. Mindfulness is being fully present, aware of where you are and what you are doing and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by your thoughts and what’s going on around you. Mindfulness not only leads to a reduction in stress, but mood improvement and self-compassion. For more information on mindfulness exercises you and your staff can try right now, please visit https://www.pocketmindfulness.com/6-mindfulness-exercises-you-can-try-today/.