Though the pandemic has pushed employers to focus on employee mental health and well-being, research shows that workers are struggling more than ever with burnout and stress in the workplace.
Motives Met, a human needs assessment software firm in San Diego, recently conducted an online survey of 2,400 U.S. employees and found that:
- Only 16% of people are thriving at work.
- 53% of employees are more likely to prioritize health and well-being over work than before the pandemic.
- 50% of people believe that their company isn’t doing all it can to improve employee well-being and happiness at work.
- Nearly 70% of C-suite members are seriously considering quitting for a job that better supports their well-being.
That last statistic, which focuses on workplace leaders, might hold the key to solving the workplace well-being puzzle. Organizations are trying to provide support, but the manager is the linchpin because they determine what their team needs while also helping employees get what they need, says Tacy M. Byham, Ph.D., CEO of Development Dimensions International (DDI), a management consultant company in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania.
Workplace leaders may hold the key to employee well-being
Nearly 70% of employees said their manager has a greater impact on their mental health than their therapist or doctor, according to a report by the Workforce Institute at technology firm UKG.
However, workplace leaders don’t always prioritize their team’s well-being. Because leaders must balance meeting deadlines and objectives while also considering their employees’ work-life balance, some leaders might unintentionally prioritize work over their team members’ well-being, Byham says.
“We just have to completely understand that leadership is tough,” she says. For example, a recent DDI study found that 72% of leaders feel used up at the end of the day—an increase from 60% in 2020. However, workplace leaders can help facilitate greater work-life harmony for both their employees and themselves.
Here are five ways that managers can drive well-being at work:
1. Reflect on workplace choices
Workplace leaders often say they want to protect their team from burnout, but then they agree to a last-minute client request that requires the team to work over the weekend. Or a manager might encourage employees to take time off from work but then praise employees who worked late or didn’t take a summer vacation.
“Just by stopping and acknowledging, ‘Oh, we say we want to live this way, but this is what we’re really committed to,’ then you can make a change,” says Kelly Mackin, CEO of Motives Met and author of Work Life Well-Lived: The Motives Met Pathway to No-B.S. Well-Being at Work.
The next time a client has a last-minute request, don’t automatically say yes, Mackin says. Instead, tell the client you need to talk with the account manager and the project manager to determine a reasonable timeline.
2. Create meaningful connections
One in five adults report feelings of loneliness, according to Gallup’s Global Emotions 2024 report.
One way to fight loneliness is to help employees feel engaged and involved with both their co-workers and their work. At DDI, employees are encouraged to join a program called “Meet Around the World,” which connects employees from DDI’s offices in Pittsburgh, New York City, Montreal and Toronto by arranging for them to speak with each other. Each month, participants set up a half-hour phone call with an employee in another office. “It’s up to me to set up the call, and it can be work-related or non-work-related, but I’m making a new connection,” Byham says.
3. Follow the 15% rule
It’s not unusual for teams to fill their work calendar with meeting after meeting. “But when you and your team’s calendar is booked every day, in every time slot, there is no room for those things that come up—that always seem to come up,” Mackin says.
It’s easy for staff to feel burnt out when there is no flexibility in the schedule to deal with staff sickness, family emergencies or last-minute client demands.
Your team’s calendar should strive to have 15% white space—time when there are no meetings scheduled—each day, Mackin says. She adds that this white space will protect you and the team from overwork because it leaves room for creativity.
4. Model the behavior
It’s not enough for workplace leaders to encourage their employees to take time off or to use the mental health benefits the company offers. Workplace leaders also need to show workers how they prioritize their own mental health and well-being by taking time off or using company-sponsored mental health benefits.
For instance, Byham openly talks with her staff about her mother’s recent cancer diagnosis. “I am the CEO, but at the same time, I’m balancing my mom… I’ve clearly declared to anyone that if the phone rings, and I see it is the retirement community where my mother is, I answer the phone [and] I step out of the meeting,” she says.
The same modeling behavior should be applied to mental health resources. Companies offer so many resources, but they are rarely used, says Marie-Helene Pelletier, Ph.D., MBA, an executive coach and keynote speaker based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. “What might change people’s choice to utilize the resources may be for the leader to use them themselves [and] to share their experience with the team,” she says.
5. Don’t put the onus on the employee
It’s very common for workplace leaders to tell their employees to speak up if they feel burnt out or stressed.
“But the problem is [that] leaders assume that their teams have the psychological safety, trust, etc., to speak up all the time,” Mackin says. She adds that most workers won’t speak up because they don’t want to disappoint their boss or be seen as someone who isn’t hardworking. “In the flow of really busy everyday work, and especially remote work, it’s not [very] easy to raise your hand and say, ‘Oh, I don’t really have the space or bandwidth to do that,’” she says.
The best way to get your team to talk about work-life harmony is to ask your employees questions and give them an invitation to talk about it, Mackin says.
Here are two questions that will open the door to discussing work-life well-being:
- Do you prefer to integrate work with your life or keep it separate?
- What’s one change you would make right now in your job role that would have the greatest impact on your work-life harmony?
Establish a simple check-in at the end of every week and ask each person on the team whether they believe their work-life harmony will be protected during the coming week, the upcoming month and the next three months. When this becomes a regular weekly discussion, Mackin says, you’re giving employees the opportunity to speak up.
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