In our first series of a social media campaign on Instagram. We answered questions on "How to professionally say..."
The series was created to generate more awareness and also to help anyone going through challenging situations at work, be able to navigate better, so as to keep their Wellbeing at work optimised and not depleted.
The response we garnered with just this one post is testament to what many employees are experiencing at the moment.
In a span of 8 weeks, we increased our followers on Instagram from 1,000 to 13,842.
There were:
- 24,599 "likes"
- 17,921saves
- 11,278 shares
- over 750,000 views
The post answered the question of how do you professionally say...
"The workload I have is too much for one person to handle."
The sheer amount of engagement goes to show that many employees are grossly overworked. They are handling the workload of more than one person, are not happy at work, and are functioning at max capacity to the brink of burnout.
I think it's important to first understand why this is happening. Here is my assessment of the current situation, and it could be due to the following reasons.
a. Employers want to stretch the dollars worth of the workforce. By not hiring another headcount, there is a perceived understanding of cost savings;
b. With competition from employers offering higher salaries and better benefits, even if employers want to hire, it is not easy to hire and find the right replacement quick enough;
c. Employers or managers are unaware of how to manage their employees’ workload;
d. Employees are unaware of how to set boundaries to manage their own workload, and hence have landed them in their current overworked positions.
So what are some strategies that employees can use to manage their current overworked positions?
In addition to addressing the situation like in this video, you can also try the following.
Speak to someone at work, or outside of work to gain a different perspective of your situation, and to offer additional advice.
Observe signs of decline in health and wellbeing. This could be inability to sleep, hair or weight loss, irritable moods, and constant fatigue. If these are happening, I recommend seeking help from a trained professional.
Take a couple of days off to reassess the situation you are in and make decisions that will consider your longer-term health and wellbeing.
What if you are an employer and have no intention of working your employees to the brink of burnout? Here are some strategies and tools that might come in useful.
a. Hire the right people from the onset. This does not mean a stringent interview process, but more of putting the right job description to hire not just for skills-fit, but also culture and aptitude fit.
b. Provide the right training to upskill for increased productivity and efficiency. When employees are hired, what steps are we taking to provide internal and external training to level up their skills and capabilities. This could be in the areas of technical skills relevant to their job function, or it could also be in soft skills like social emotional learning, communications and/or conflict management.
c. Provide a robust wellbeing strategy with a range of wellness solutions to show that you care. These include easy access to counselling, wellness awareness talks, and culture-building team activities. Employees are empowered to manage their own workload and stress levels. This has proven to improve employee engagement and increase wellbeing, two key metrics that could be that make-or-break to employees making the decision to stay or leave.
Whether you are an employee or employer, I hope this article gave some insights. We all know that a disgruntled and disengaged employee who has depleted wellbeing is not just unproductive, but will definitely be looking to change jobs as well. There is extra cost to have to deal with attrition, and it is a lose-lose for both the employer and employee. We need to think win-win for that best case scenario.
Drop me an email at alex.loh@actxawellness.com if you'd like to have a conversation on how you can elevate wellbeing at the workplace.
About the Writer
Alex’s compass is guided by the desire to help people. This is the driving force that allows him to focus on helping organisations harness fitness, health and wellness as the vehicles to building sustainable solutions. He is the CEO and Co-founder at Actxa Wellness, where he also leads as Chief Wellbeing Strategist. Together with the team, they provide products and services as Wellness Consultants for organisations, where they identify gaps and work with HR professionals to co-create corporate wellness solutions to improve employee engagement and wellbeing.