With so much attention being paid to the devastating pandemic’s severe impact on budgets and the problems related to remote working arrangements, it is easy to downplay or ignore employees’ mental health. Elected officials and executives may believe employees should persevere and maintain satisfactory performance. But, realistically, the situation in many public agencies could deteriorate rapidly over the next several months. As this column is being written, there has been no action to reimburse public employers for COVID-19 outlays.
Surveys conducted early in the pandemic found that this has been the most stressful time of most respondents’ professional careers. The next several months are also going to be a period of unusually high stress and anxiety. Employers need to anticipate and monitor the signs of burnout and depression.
The list of possible factors adding to the stress is long. It was captured recently in a column on Dr. John Sullivan’s website. Sullivan is a prominent staffing consultant based in San Francisco. His list includes
- Concerns about job loss or layoffs
- Fear of eviction or losing one’s home
- Catching the virus at work
- The loneliness of working remotely
- Coworker or friend dying from COVID
- Kids’ safety at school
- Possible new recession and loss of income
- Spouse’s loss of job and needed income
- Discomfort with remote working
- Excess overtime because of staff cuts
Added stress will affect performance, causing errors, accidents and turnover. Remote working, with team members working from separate locations, will present new challenges for managers and supervisors. Individuals will have days when their personal issues unexpectedly force them to miss work.
Sullivan offers several suggestions for anticipating and dealing with the potential problems.
- Educate everyone on the potential for anxiety and stress. Make sure employees are aware that their feelings are understandable and likely to be shared by others. Also make certain they are fully aware of available mental health resources for themselves and members of their families.
- Track absenteeism and tardiness to identify patterns. Also document situations when an employee becomes argumentative or causes problems. If a pattern emerges, discuss this with the employee.
- Look for early warning signs of employee stress and sources of distraction. Help managers become aware of behaviors that suggest the need to intervene and encourage them to be proactive in speaking with employees who are not behaving normally.
- Learn and try to understand the range of employees’ concerns. Conduct occasional group meetings to enable employees to share their feelings. Invite them to encourage their spouses to communicate family concerns.
- Adopt performance metrics. Where appropriate, track progress toward goals and help employees understand how they are progressing. This will minimize regression.
- Increase communication and transparency. Employees need to understand how important their work efforts are and how their work products fit into the functioning and performance of the organization. They need to appreciate what it means if their performance declines, so keep them fully informed.
- Give employees greater flexibility. This extends to giving them options for when and where they work. Neither remote workers nor those in an office should feel the other has an advantage. Allow employees to take time off if they need to.
- Provide times when employees can relax and socialize. For employees working onsite, consider providing soft drinks and snacks so they can take a break, talk freely and share experiences with coworkers.
- Remind employees about available mental health benefits. In particular, occasionally remind them that they have access to employee assistance programs.
The Pandemic Has Significantly Increased the Prospects for Burnout
Recently, internet searches on the symptoms and signs of burnout have skyrocketed. The pandemic has exploded as a major organizational problem that cannot be overstated. Other factors can contribute to triggering burnout, as well. These include long working hours, high performance expectations, lack of autonomy (or close supervisor control), a toxic work environment, ongoing verbal abuse or discrimination, and unsanitary or unsafe working conditions. Added to that are concerns about family and homelife.
At government agencies over the past several months, long hours for frontline workers and skills shortages compounded by layoffs of employees in noncritical job categories should be expected to contribute to burnout. A year before the pandemic began, the World Health Organization recognized burnout as an “occupational phenomenon.”
The WHO defines burnout as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress. The symptoms include
- Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
- Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
- Reduced professional efficacy.
Signs that an employee may be experiencing these symptoms include problems sleeping, a reduced attention span, diminished efficiency, tardiness for work and meetings, increased negativism or cynicism, and, possibly, anger.
When an employee becomes burned-out, the costs to the employer can be significant. Burnout adversely affects an employee’s productivity and performance. It also leads to increased absenteeism, accidents and mistakes. Possible workplace violence prompts safety considerations.
For the individual, burnout can lead to alcohol or drug abuse, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and increased vulnerability to chronic health conditions like heart disease. The problem may be a covered serious health condition under either the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) or the Americans with Disability Act if it substantially limits one or more of an employee’s major life activities—including, of course, continued employment. That could prompt the need for reasonable accommodations.
Symptoms of burnout start showing weeks or months before they affect an employee’s performance. This means that the human resources team needs to stay abreast of what may be happening if an employee begins to exhibit the symptoms. In the current work environment, HR is advised to take the lead in communicating with the workforce to ensure they know help is available. Experts suggest both holding group discussions about the work experience and encouraging confidential conversations.
Implementing Research on Healthy Workplaces
As it explains on its website, the American Psychological Association’s Center for Organizational Excellence “works to enhance the functioning of individuals, groups, organizations and communities through the application of psychology to a broad range of workplace issues.” The center was created several years ago to help employers improve performance. Today, its resources are also valuable for identifying and reacting to emerging situations where stress threatens employees’ well-being.
The center defines a psychologically healthy workplace as one that “fosters employee health and well-being while enhancing organizational performance” and productivity. Despite the obvious problems created by the pandemic, now could be an opportunity to transform the work experience and make government a more attractive place to work. The commitment to investing in employees’ well-being will pay off far beyond the pandemic.
Findings from the healthy workplace research that should help guide the transformation fall into five categories.
Employee Engagement
The center labels this “employee involvement” and notes that “efforts to increase employee involvement empower workers, involve them in decision making and give them increased job autonomy.” Public organizations have a tradition of top-down, close-control supervision. Employees are expected to do what they are told.
Giving employees a greater degree of control over how they perform their jobs can, according to the center, “increase job satisfaction, employee morale and commitment to the organization.” It does this by sending the message to employees that they are trusted. Evidence also shows that empowering employees contributes to higher productivity, reduces turnover and absenteeism, and sharpens focus, which reduces mistakes and accidents.
Approaches the center lists as involving employees in meaningful ways are
- Creating self-managed work teams
- Establishing employee committees or task forces
- Setting up continuous improvement teams
- Delegating decision making
- Holding employee suggestion forums
Work-Life Balance
Policies that acknowledge the importance of work-life balance, as well as the need to address family problems, help individuals better manage the multiple demands on their time. It is also important to create an environment where the flexibility available to remote workers is not seen as an advantage. Employees who experience a conflict between work and other life responsibilities, especially the need to address health concerns, often experience stress that affects their commitment and performance.
Avoiding the costs of absenteeism and the loss of skills due to turnover easily justifies granting more scheduling flexibility. Here, a decided advantage of goal-based management is that it gives employees the flexibility to create a schedule that allows them to meet both work and personal obligations.
The center notes that programs and policies that can promote work-life balance include
- Offering flexible work arrangements, such as flextime and telecommuting
- Providing assistance with childcare
- Offering eldercare benefits
- Providing resources to help employees manage personal financial concerns
- Offering flexible leave options beyond those required by the FMLA
Employee Growth and Development
Committing to supporting and encouraging training and development for employees is known to be important to an employer’s brand for recruiting and retention. The center also notes that opportunities to develop new skills and tackle new problems increases “motivation and job satisfaction and helps workers more effectively manage job stress.” In addition to helping with recruitment, investing in development reduces the costs associated with turnover and loss of skills—all of which can translate into improved performance.
Practices that offer support for employee growth and development include
- In-house training or outside training programs
- Continuing/professional education seminars
- Tuition reimbursement
- Career development or counseling services
- Temporary job assignments
- Coaching, mentoring and leadership development programs
Employee Recognition
Employees want to know that they and their work efforts are valued. And, as the center notes, “Recognition can take various forms, formal and informal, monetary and nonmonetary.”
Entire books discuss the many ways employers recognize and reward employees. The moral is that acknowledging employees’ efforts makes them feel appreciated and can increase their satisfaction and self-esteem. In turn, the practice increases employee engagement and productivity, reduces turnover and enhances the employer’s brand for recruiting.
Basic recognition practices include
- Ensuring base pay is fair and generally competitive
- Acknowledging contributions and milestones
- Awarding performance-based bonuses and pay increases
- Giving out employee awards
- Holding recognition ceremonies
- Communicating employees’ contributions to spouses
Health and Safety Initiatives
As the center states, “Health and safety initiatives maximize the physical and mental health of employees through the prevention, assessment, and treatment of potential health risks and problems and by encouraging and supporting healthy lifestyle and behavior choices.” These facts have taken on new, obvious importance with the pandemic continuing to threaten employees.
When employees have reason to be concerned with their safety, it can be a high barrier to their performance. “By investing in the health and safety of their employees,” the center writes, “organizations may benefit from greater productivity and reductions in health care costs, absenteeism and accident/injury rates.”
Initiatives to address health and safety issues, some of which have been expanded post-COVID-19, include
- Training and communication that address workplace safety and security issues
- Adoption of policies and new work arrangements such as working from home that enable employees to avoid or minimize exposure to health hazards
- Recurring health screenings
- Expanding health insurance to cover more family members and to provide mental health coverage
- Reimbursing employees for-accessing health, fitness and recreation programs
- Helping employees develop a healthy lifestyle by, for example, offering stress management programs
- Providing resources to help employees address life problems by, for example, making grief counseling and alcohol abuse counseling available through employee assistance programs and referrals for mental health services
Creating Best Places to Work
There are now groups in virtually every industry and major city that recognize the best places to work. Organizations that receive such distinctions are generally more successful. Their brand gives then an advantage in recruiting employees with essential skills. And, yes, they maintain broadly competitive compensation programs. But that is not the reason they are attractive employers.
For reasons that are not evident, public employers, with a few rare exceptions, have not created similar recognition programs or applied for recognition from outside groups. This is important because workforce demographic trends will, after the pandemic fades, once again present employers with skills shortages.
To reiterate a statement made frequently, public employers have experienced problems attracting the best-qualified applicants. Interest in public sector careers has waned for reasons that are not clear. In some locations and with specific occupations, vacancies have contributed to operating problems. Teachers, for example, are known to be in short supply.
Everyone wins, including the customers—and, here, the public—when an employer commits to creating a great place to work. The WHO argues that each dollar invested in improving the work experience will return $4 in improved employee mental health and performance.
In addition to the Center for Organizational Excellence, an excellent source of ideas for creating healthy, positive work environments is McKinsey. The consulting firm has invested heavily in research to understand the practices that contribute to healthy organizations, a topic for which Amazon lists some 4,000 books.
The pandemic and the resulting sudden shift to working remotely is forcing employers in virtually every sector to rethink the ways they organize and manage work and workers. Old supervisory practices are no longer acceptable or effective.
The old close, top-down approach to supervision cannot be practiced with remote workers. Employees want to be empowered and trusted to make work-related decisions. All of this makes now an ideal time to rethink the way work is managed.
The practices at the best places to work are largely available to all employers. Government’s purpose and service to the public should be an advantage.
An advertisement for a new book titled Humanocracy reads,
In the age of upheaval, top-down power structures and rule-choked management systems are a liability. They crush creativity and stifle initiative. As leaders, employees, investors and citizens, we deserve better. We need organizations that are bold, entrepreneurial and as nimble as change itself. …
[The authors] make a passionate, data-driven argument for excising bureaucracy and replacing it with something better. Drawing on more than a decade of research, and packed with practical examples, Humanocracy lays out a detailed blueprint for creating organizations that are as inspired and ingenious as the human beings inside them.
The promised blueprint could be a good model for beginning to think about possible policy changes. Consulting the websites for the best places to work and attending the periodic conferences on the subject would also be helpful. It would make sense to involve employees in seeking ideas and reforming the workplace. Many will be anxious to help. A first step is convincing leaders it will pay off. Government should be a best place to work.
01 September 2020
Category
HR News Article
