Picture this.
Your company is soaring high with impressive market figures. Your customers are happy and you have a pool of talented employees driving the business.
What would you do in such a situation?
Would you compel your workforce to burn the midnight oil and churn more revenue? Or, would you allow your employees to continue making progress at the same rate, reaching one milestone at a time?
Though companies are expected to follow the first path, several firms promote the norm of overworking. It is a faulty practice that eventually backfires, diminishes productivity, and impacts business.
What is meant by ‘Overworking’?
In simple words, ‘Overworking’ refers to exhausting or draining oneself with a huge amount of work for a long span of time. It comes along with lots of baggage, impacting both the company and its employees. It is associated with several physiological and mental health related ailments. Apart from lowering productivity and hampering the work quality, it also leads to poor morale and a deteriorated image of the company.
What are the ways to prevent overworking?
Strike the perfect work-life balance:
Companies need to encourage their employees to achieve a proper work-life balance. This can be initiated by offering flexible working hours, setting task boundaries, etc. On having adequate time for themselves, employees will be able to deal with work-related stress in a better way. By taking a day off, they would come back to work with a renewed spirit and enhanced energy.
Train leaders and managers:
Companies should train team leaders to be proactive so that they can prevent the employees from overworking. Managers should foster an atmosphere of trust and encourage open and adequate communication. An empathetic and able leader will easily get involved with the staff. He or she will be able to notice the early signs of burnout and take action accordingly.
Foster a caring culture:
Create a positive work environment where employees will feel more valued and heard. Conduct regular surveys to understand the work culture and implement changes if required. Enhance the rate of employee engagement by hosting periodic workshops with eminent field experts. Give priority to the mental health of the workforce and devise strategies to reduce stress.
Provide employee benefits:
A company can boost the morale of its workforce by offering valuable work benefits. This can be given in the forms of financial reward programs, health insurances, paid parental leaves, in-house daycare services, wellness programs, etc. The management should ensure that employees across all the organization levels receive the perks and no one is left behind.
Use productivity tools:
Ensuring an appropriate work environment is essential, even in the case of remote work prevalent today. To prevent an employee from overworking himself or herself, companies need to have active participation in helping them. For this, organizations can use specially designed employee productivity tools. These tools provide insightful data on how the employees utilize their time, when they are most productive, how much time they require for a particular task etc.
