With unemployment rates at their lowest level since 2000, approximately a third of high-ranking Irish employers are struggling to fill positions with the right candidates. While the talent gap can pressurise existing staff with increasing workloads, and lead to further staffing issues, , drafting in someone ill-equipped for the role is arguably worse.
 
Competition for skilled candidates might be tough, but the good news is that the rise of new tech trends can help your HR team to refine recruitment drives to ensure a process of candidate-selection which bases its judgement on authentic skill. This article will discuss how to upgrade the quality of your candidate assessment and to reduce the pressure of the recruitment drive for both you and your staff.

Why So Important?
The traditional interview can be limiting; not all candidates perform well in this type of assessment, while others are great at ‘talking the talk’ but once given the job, fall short of your expectations.
 
Meanwhile, interview and workplace bias is nothing new either. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) reported that between 2004 and 2014, discriminatory behaviour in Irish workplaces rose from 41% to 50%. A further Irish study by the CSO called ‘Ethnicity and Nationality in the Irish Labour Market’ revealed results that showed that black non-Irish people were five times more likely to experience recruitment discrimination compared to white Irish people.
 
Another study by the CSO showed that almost 7% of women had experienced discrimination at work with pregnancy been cited as a reason for exclusion multiple times through the report.
New tech adoption within HR offers the opportunity to overcome these limitations, rectify these instances of unconscious bias and diversify the Irish workforce.  
 
 
Think About Your Staff, Not Just New Staff
 
o    Prepare, Prepare, Prepare
 
Sometimes the administrative efforts required to organise final interviews can distract from staff preparation.
 
It is imperative that you train senior colleagues to interview effectively and agree on what qualities they would like in a new team member.
 
Interview panels with a mix of men and women will put your diversity values into action and are also the best way to allow multiple perspectives to weigh in on the candidate’s suitability.
 
 
New Interviewing Trends  

• Personality Tests

New Applications like Koru and Pymetrics use AI to overcome the pitfalls of traditional interviews.

Applicants can take online personality tests and pre-interview skill assessments, collecting an online fingerprint of candidate skillsets. This helps your HR team to make the right recruitment decisions and choose the best fit candidates for the job.  

• AI Video Recruiting

Hiring tools such as Knockri which analyse facial and vocal data have changed the face of the recruitment process. This soft-skill assessment tool reduces unconscious bias in the shortlisting stage and speeds up your recruitment process by immediately eliminating no-shows or unsuitable candidates.

The use of this tool resulted in 17% more individuals of colour were hired as well as far more women. Your workforce can be diversified, while the recruitment drive is simplified for your existing staff – a result for any HR team.

• Predictive Analytics

The time you spend on CVs and cover letters can impact business operations as well as your staff management.

The use of Predictive Analytics can take away heavy administrative burdens for your staff and give time back to your HR team to spend on what really matters – getting to truly understand candidates, their needs and wants, and their ability to fit in with your company culture.
 
In Review
These tips and tricks can reinvent the way you hire by cutting down on the workload in the early stages and upskilling your staff to effectively manage the final decision-making process.

Through the usage of online tests to gauge the holistic and practical abilities of the prospective colleague, your HR Department can keep your recruitment drive to an efficient timescale and choose candidates based on relevant results and the final weigh-in of your expertly trained colleagues.

​These trends demonstrate how your HR team are a much-needed tool to futureproof your workforce – invest in it and ensure your hiring process is as effective as possible.

Jules : [Alluding to age difference] I'm glad you also see the humor in this.
 
Ben : [Smiles wryly] It would be hard not to.
 
The Intern is the exposé we didn’t know we needed on the challenges of generation gaps in today’s workplaces. Jules Ostin, CEO of her own company, seems to be the antithesis of Ben Whittaker; a senior intern drafted in to bring some old-school knowledge to her start-up. Nicknamed ‘boomer’ by his younger tech-savvy co-workers and standing out in his formal attire, Ben personifies the struggles of his generation in today’s working world.
 
While Ben needs his colleagues’ help navigating his MacBook, he brings his own brand of soft skills to the table which seem to have been somewhat forgotten in Jules’s fast-paced corporate empire. The crux of the film is that the senior intern, who seems out-of-touch, becomes the very person to support and motivate his millennial counterparts.
 
Is your workplace ready to rethink the generation-gap as a vital opportunity to apply innovation to experience?
 
 
Time to Review
 
Today inter-generational work teams are part and parcel of working life now that five generations are eligible for the labour force; a melting  pot which includes traditionalist (born before 1946), boomer, gen X, millennial and gen Z (born after 1997). These different backgrounds unsurprisingly mean staff can feel highly differentiated.
 
According to the William Fry Employment Report of 2016, 71% of employers identify tech as a struggle for older workers, while the Deloitte ROI Millennial Report of 2017 revealed that, 52% of Irish Millennials believe businesses are still primarily focused on their own agenda. It is clear that different skillsets and priorities exist but stereotyping Millennials as tech-addicts and baby boomers as technophobic only serves to divide.
 
Rather than focusing on these disparities, tech can be employed as a unifier which can only reap rewards for your business with the unique knowledge that comes when those with different strengths share them with one another.
 
 
Ways to Unite
 
Successful communication between staff begins by forging commonalities, not emphasising differences.
 
o    Office Communication Systems
 
The adoption of technologies such as Yammer and Slack act as a point-of-contact which can create the sense of community craved by the younger generations as well as the opportunity for the older generations to upskill themselves technologically. The platforms allow staff to communicate easily and to create different groups for collaborative projects. Team make-up can be the perfect opportunity to mix young and old,  and the collective process of getting to grips with the office tech of choice can be a chance for staff to bond. In The Intern Jules helps Ben set up his Facebook account which brings them closer as colleagues.
 
 
o    Let newer team members take on more responsibility
 
Webinars and video calls enable new team members to join in on a project from anywhere. Whatever method of inclusion you take, sharing company strategy, project updates and company successes with new staff will demonstrate trust and improve the employer-employee dynamic, especially with millennials who often prefer to work independently. Scenes in which Ben is helping the mail clerk in order to ‘keep busy’ act as a social commentary on the tendency for newer professionals to become side-lined from important projects, especially if faced with ageism, whether fresh-faced Generation Zer or seasoned ‘boomer’.
 
o    Eliminate Unconscious Bias
 
Stereotypes can be detrimental to our decision-making processes and management of individuals in the workplace. Using AI software can be a great way to override this issue and ensure inclusivity. It can create factual documentation of conversations and ensure all relevant parties are emailed following meetings. Jules must specifically ask her assistant to CC Ben into e-mails after realising she has overlooked his potential. AI can forestall generational stereotypes to make for a more integrated team and inclusive company culture.
 
 
In Short
 
Workplace tech is the surprising unifier we need in today’s workplaces so we can move past the generational stereotypes. While Meyers’s film may oversimplify ageism into a binary of young and old –it effortlessly shows that the raw initiative of Generation Y and Z shouldn’t be overlooked and conveys the simple truth that ‘experience never gets old’.

 
‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.’
 
This unofficial motto of the United States Postal Service isn’t exactly a sentiment shared by Irish workers across the country right now. This week employers and employees nationwide are recovering from last week’s Storm Gareth which left almost 2,000 homes and businesses without power and Irish winds reaching average speeds of up 130km/h. In conditions like these, is the work commute ever worth it?
 
While last year’s ‘Beast from the East’ showcases our love for weather-related drama, severe weather is no laughing matter, and the more dangerous it is considered, the more it leaves employees and employers alike wondering whether to stay at home or batten down the hatches.
 
Is your business ready to dig out your inclement weather policy and update it? Let’s delve into the challenges for both parties and discuss how to shore up your business against the vagaries of the elements.    
 
Benefits of a Standard Procedure
 
Risk management can slip on your list of priorities when so many other things need immediate attention but setting expectations on snow-day policies will upkeep your productivity as well as your company morale when things get out of control.
 

• Create a Standard Procedure

 
Having a clear understanding with employees about your official procedure will pay dividends for your company culture when disaster inevitably strikes. Besides the sheer inconvenience, storm days put serious financial and social pressure on employees. Staff will struggle to financially justify using a holiday or forfeiting that day’s pay altogether so clear expectations are key and will avoid unnecessary risks. 
 

• Payment on Days Off

 
Exempt employees rely on you to make the right call on a snow day. It is your prerogative to keep the business open or shut and if the former, absentees can’t legally cite the weather as a valid reason for not arriving to work and will not get paid. If someone takes a risk to get to work and finds it closed, or are refused payment for staying at home, it's not a good look for your HR team. Finding alternative work procedures or making a reasonable call to shut the office in dangerous conditions is vital
 

• Out-of-Office Communication

 
Rather than frantically digging out the phonebook on a snowy morning, set up a phone tree with all your employees’ contact details. This is a great way to notify your staff via e-mail or SMS of your decision to stay open or not.
 
Another way to overcome commuter issues is to let your employees work from home every so often. With practice, connecting to your business’s VPN from home will be second nature and your employees will be able to rectify any IT issues in advance. This way; your profits won’t collapse when Storm Hannah shows up.
 
Upskill your employees who are new to cloud computing or other applications. Updating skillsets will mean that closing the office won’t equate to financial loss; a win-win situation which will boost staff morale and protect their pay cheques.
 
In Review
 
Storm Days can become a whirlwind of logistical and HR challenges for both employer and employee. Update your inclement weather policy in advance to prevent staff dissatisfaction by generating a standardised company procedure. Teaching your staff how to effectively work from home builds trust, saves pay cheques and protects your business financially should your office be snowed in.
 
Taking these simple steps before disaster strikes will ensure you and your staff effectively weather the storm.

A decade ago, jobs were in short supply and the quest for financial security was in demand. Fast-forward to today and things have changed.

Ireland’s national unemployment rate hit an all-time low of 5.3% at the end of 2018, and while this has rose, the trend remains downward. Businesses across the country are now faced with the corporate conundrum of staff retention.

The last of the Millennials, and the first of Generation Z have begun to enter the working population.
This new workforce yearn for more than a job; a career full of development, skills growth and satisfaction now trumps traditional financial rewards and bonuses.

Let’s explore what the generation gap means for your business today and how you can deliver top talent retention and trump the competition.
 
Time to Review
As new generations begin to comprise the Irish workforce, your business needs to move along with the times. While financial rewards will never be ‘sniffed at’, Irish Millennials and Generation Z value genuine investment in their careers, and care for their wellbeing.

As a business, building relationships and loyalty amongst staff is key. As dating app trends like ‘ghosting’ creep into the working world, active investment of your employees and their careers can grow a positive dynamic, increase loyalty and ensure you keep the right talent in your team
 
How Can Your Business Improve its Talent Retention?
Retaining staff is a challenge, but it’s crucial for your business. Company performance and reputation relies heavily on its people and their skills. Here’s a few steps you can take to improve your talent retention:
 

• Review Company Policy

Rethinking workplace conduct demonstrates your company’s willingness to change the status quo from time to time and think about the day-to-day experience of their colleagues. Initiating fresh company policies like ‘work from home’ days will showcase your trust in your own staff, creating a positive mindset amongst your workforce.
 

• Give Feedback

Whether positive feedback or constructive criticism, regular appraisals are key if you want to keep the up-and-coming generation on your team. Millennial and Generation Z individuals are less likely to develop a sense of loyalty for a company if they feel their personal goals are not being adequately considered.  Making the effort to speak to an employee about their performance shows your investment in their career, as someone integral to your business’ future.
 

• Designate Opportunities

Your ability to retain staff and your willingness to actively invest in their careers runs parallel. If employees are given the opportunity of promotion, they are much more likely to try and achieve a higher position which nominally reflects their expertise as well as their past loyalty to the company.
​

• Give Recognition

A touch of healthy competition never hurt anyone. Creating opportunities for special recognition such as an ‘Employee of the Month’ award will drive performance and showcase the company’s appreciation for its people. Accolades personalise the business and can make its company culture stand out from the crowd.
 

• Train and Upskill

Active investment in the skillsets of your staff can enhance employee loyalty, as genuine care and commitment for training will showcase your willingness to improve their careers.
 

• Organise Team-Building Activities

It’s vital for your business to have a social element which reflects the values of your company’s culture. Team-building activities will offer an opportunity for co-workers to forge personal bonds outside of the pressures of the office. These relationships can make or break your office dynamic; team-building activities can only be an advantage for your business.

• Re-designate Tasks

Try to pass tasks around in the workplace. Shaking up who does what gives employees the chance to build upon their knowledge and skills.. They may even discover a new passion they never knew they had!
 
Your Next Step
Reviewing company culture regularly augments recruitment levels and aids talent-retention. The crux of the employer-employee relationship is trust and what better way to show your considerations of staff than rethinking their workplace experience at all point.
 

Recent research found that only 7% of the Irish workforce engaged in personal training programmes; a figure which lags far behind other EU states. As Ireland’s talent market is squeezed further, your talent retention relies on your willingness as a business to invest in the skills and experience of your staff.

According to the National Skills Strategy collated by the Department for Education; worker participation in upskilling needs to double to 15% by 2025.

Is your business ready to upskill?

Regardless of how you choose to assess your staff, or set standards in the workplace, a lack of constructive feedback can leave your staff feeling overwhelmed and lacking the drive for improved performance.

Benefits of Upskilling
Employer-employee relationships can be greatly enhanced when a business decides to upskill staff.
Benefits include:

• Staff Value

By investing in training for your staff, you showcase your genuine interest in their careers and development. This will help staff feel valued by their employer and increase the employer’s ability to retain their skilled talent.

• Enhanced Performance

Through training and upskilling your staff, you can enhance their skills, leading to better quality performance for your organisation. Improved performance will lead to happier clients and staff; your business can experience further growth and success, and employee job satisfaction will increase as a result of their improved performance.

• Greater Reputation

As your company performance increases, and staff morale is boosted, this will build a greater reputation for your business amongst competitors, and as an employer to future talent.
 
How to Upskill for the Future
Upskilling and training staff is a much needed, and positive investment step for any business. Here are just some ways you can upskill and future-proof your workforce:

• Learning and Development Programmes

Graduate programmes such as the Jameson Graduate Programme highlight employers’ realisations that new additions to the workforce need personal investment to convert their educational achievements into an applicable skillset. The act of reaching out to graduates and taking a ‘chance’ on them as such builds trust and is highly likely to reduce the rate of employee turnover.

The Irish Institute of Training and Development is one of many organisations dedicated to giving existing employees a chance to built upon their existing skillset or even to just refresh it. Their Thought Leadership Programme offers an in-depth two-day course to give employees with untapped potential to build their transferable skills, improve their confidence and get professional training in communication.
 

• Personal Development

Employee personal development can sometimes fall from top priority when pressure for workplace productivity is high. Energy invested in the employee’s well-being, however, is imperative for workplace performance.

DCM Learning is an organisation which organises training programmes to equip employees with the skills necessary to deal with stress and adversity they may experience in the workplace. The course activities which are available nationwide bring together different methods of resilience to promote physical health, psychological well-being and boost morale. This type of training can reap positive behavioural changes and improve employee resilience tenfold.

• Recognition

The IITD National Training Awards are an example of accolades which demonstrate employer appreciation for staff involvement in training initiatives. The importance of this recognition can sometimes be discounted but from an HR perspective, acknowledgement of staff who work with a business as well as for a business is vital to create employee satisfaction which will be accompanied by improved staff loyalty.
 
A More Dynamic Approach
Demonstrating genuine care and investment in your staff and their skills is now vital to retain your talent.

Effective skills seminars and learning programmes are a tried and tested way to increase staff loyalty, retention and engagement, improve productivity and customer service, and reduce employee turnover.

​The good news is we already have the talent we need and by choosing alternative ways of sourcing potential, businesses everywhere can reap the benefits of their human investments.

Bonuses have been a long-time, standard procedure in business. At times, they were even taken for granted as an end-of-year motivation to build staff morale.

Traditionally, the awareness of a cash or non-cash bonus by staff was thought to drive performance, but is this really the case?
 
The Pros & Cons
A demonstration of employee appreciation can be critical for staff morale, showcasing your commitment as an employer to invest in your staff.

Bonuses benefit businesses as it is a simple, quick-fire approach to reward staff. Management can show their appreciation for great performance, loyalty and commitment by providing an end-of-year award – let’s face it, come Christmas time, cold, hard cash will always be welcome.

But, the bonus can often begin to be taken for granted – as a result, employees often begin to seek more meaningful feedback or rewards, as a token of appreciation.

When taken away, bonuses can quickly come back to haunt your business, as employees view them as a standard year-end procedure, an entitlement as part of their job, rather than a reward.

The onset of the 2008 financial crash catalysed negative sentiment toward bonus incentive schemes, placing them uncomfortably in the spotlight. They quickly became a marker of the Celtic Tiger era, the “suits” culture that was now recognised as a direct cause of the crash, and the growing gap between the organisation and their senior executives.
 
What Alternatives Are on Offer?
With these concerns in mind, it’s time to reimagine the bonus, and get inventive:
 

• Giving Power Back to Your Employees

Demonstrate your appreciation for your staff by giving them a voice. Giving employees the freedom to make their own choices during work, even if it’s a small matter, can boost their morale and motivate them within their roles.

Creating an opportunity in the workplace and providing variance to an employee’s daily routine, giving staff more autonomy will demonstrate your value and trust in them, enhance creativity and sharing of ideas, boosting performance as a result.
 

• Short-Term Accolades

Providing more frequent rewards will showcase more meaningful appreciation of a staff member’s performance. Not only will this demonstrate to them your commitment to investing in their career, but it will provide valuable feedback for them to improve and boost their performance.

Gratification through short-term accolades will provide a mental link for staff to their recent positive actions, driving up more regular performance, rather than the bonus as a catalyst for improvement at the year’s end.

Regular quality performance will become the norm, boosting your reputation as a business amongst customers and stakeholders alike.
 
A Fresh Approach
By moving away from the ‘do this and you’ll get that’ rational of the bonus, managers can overcome the counter-intuitive nature of traditional incentives and creatively reinvent employee recognition.

​Demonstrate your commitment to staff investment – go beyond the traditional bonus and reinvent employee appreciation for your business.  

No matter your lifestyle, a person’s job takes up much of their time. With people spending on average 13 years of their life in work over a 50 year period, it’s crucial that they feel valued, needed and wanted.

No longer is a ‘job for life’. Studies have shown that people will change jobs on average 12 times during their careers, while the cost for replacing one employee in Ireland now stands at €13,100. Active staff investment is vital for talent retention in the current job market.

In the past, appraisals were the ‘go-to’ annual review for companies and their employees. But, in 2015, Deloitte revamped their review process, after spending nearly 2 million hours on reviews and appraisals.

Industry leaders are thinking up alternatives – are you?
 
Appraisals: Pros and Cons
Appraisals benefit businesses by providing the opportunity to review staff and company performance, initiate needed improvements, and offer praise to top staff and departments.

Despite well-meaning intentions, appraisals have become dreaded by managerial departments worldwide.

Eating up large amounts of time, annual reviews are monotonous, as managers attempt to complete them as quickly as possible. As a result, companies can often struggle to gain meaningful insight into the performance of their staff and company, while all colleagues lose out on valuable time.
 
Taking a Different Approach
So, the pros and cons are clear then. But is there an alternative approach that would suit your business better?
 

• Look Beyond the Form

Don’t let your appraisals fall into the trap of a ‘tick box’ exercise. A simple formality to fill a form out, put someone up for promotion and increase a few salaries.

Looking beyond the form could provide an effective alternative, one that ensures feedback is meaningful rather than part of a process.

These meetings should be focused heavily on the employee, where they are in terms of progress, and how they see themselves and their role.

Only by providing constructive feedback that goes beyond filled-out boxes will performance improve and will effective impact be made.
 

• ‘Stay’ Interviews vs Annual Reviews

Often, employee issues and dissatisfaction can come out of the woodwork when it’s too late; when their resignations have been handed in, their desks have been cleared and their exit interviews have been completed.

But appraisals, when used correctly, give insight, not only in staff performance, but their job satisfaction, work-life balance and ambitions for the future.

‘Pointless’ annual reviews become meaningful ‘stay’ interviews for staff, giving managers the opportunity to provide useful feedback to staff, and to act on information given to them by individuals.
 
What Are the Alternatives?
Maybe taking a different approach isn’t enough. Maybe you want to give your business a complete alternative to the annual appraisal. What can be done?
 

• Little and Often

Appraisals are often annual, making them both time-consuming and at times, unfairly based on the last few months of that working year. This can be due to memory and recent impressions of their performance.

Regular feedback can resolve this, making review workloads more manageable, and providing staff with useful, relevant and fairer feedback.

Managers could host monthly or bi-monthly miniature reviews with staff members. Not only will feedback quality improve, but managers can utilise the opportunity to foster openness, and give staff the space to bring up issues.
 

• Peer Reviews

Another appraisal alternative is the peer review. Reducing managerial time spent on annual appraisals, these provide a fresh perspective on an individual’s work performance, from the viewpoint of those that work alongside them and are directly impacted by their performance.

While this has its advantages, managers should tread carefully. In any workplace, not all employees may get on or like each-other. These tensions could have the capacity to spill out into peer reviews.

​When receiving these peer reviews, managers should watch out for overly-biased opinions, and ensure they receive reviews from multiple peers to breakdown any bias that may occur. 

Running a business can be tough. Balancing time restraints alongside company targets and shareholder expectations can be a challenge for any boss. But ensuring your workplace promotes a healthy environment can bring a multitude of benefits.

The recession is no longer in Ireland. The country is experiencing an all-time-low post-crash unemployment rate of 5.3%. A talent war is underway – talent attraction and retention now relies not only on the job itself, but on what your workplace can offer staff.

During our “Fighting Fit” series, employee wellness has been explored, and how you, as an employer, can best support colleagues.

Now it’s time to ask yourself this question: Am I putting workplace health first?
 
Why So Important?
Depending on sector, workplaces can be busy minefields of deadlines, KPIs and office politics. While these are part and parcel of the daily running of a business, the health of the working environment can suffer if these things become a burden.
​

• Performance

Whether your business is a coffee shop, a marketing agency or joinery team, performance is key. An unhealthy work environment can affect the performance of your business; unwell colleagues may take time off, effectively causing a loss of ‘hands’, and working hours.

Staff will grow unsatisfied with their roles when pressured by a negative workplace. Quality and motivation will deteriorate, and so too will your performance as whole.

• Reputation

A business often relies on its reputation as a key influence on sales, talent retention and attraction. As workplace health suffers, so too can your reputation. Staff may begin to resent you as an employer or organisation. Their family and friends will hear their negative views, causing a change in perspective towards your company.

If your performance suffers a result of an unhealthy working environment, your reputation amongst customers and future clients may also breakdown. Unable to attract great talent or great customers, your ability to grow successfully may be hindered.
 
How to Put Your Workplace Health First?
In this series of articles, the best approach to encouraging physical and mental health awareness amongst staff has been explored. Clearly employee wellbeing is key for your business, that’s no secret.

But this can be easier said than done. It’s time to put words into actions.
 

• Employee Wellbeing as Culture

Take a strategic approach to workplace health. While organising lunch time walking clubs and a charity marathon is great, these one-off initiatives will not produce long-term impact on your company culture.

A full employee wellbeing programme placed at the heart of your growth strategy has the potential to transform your business. Providing regular physical and mental health initiatives, such as those discussed in the previous articles, will revolutionise your company culture, get colleagues paying attention, and demonstrate your investment in the health and environment of your workplace.
 

• Employee Involvement in their Wellbeing

As you create this strategic approach, involve your colleagues from the beginning. Whether you lead a 5 person or 50 person team, all employees should have a voice on their own wellbeing.

Including your team will help identify key areas they want to focus on, including how they would like to improve their physical and mental health.

Having staff involved from the beginning will provide them with confidence to voice their concerns and ambitions, and foster a culture of openness towards the health of their working environment.

In Ireland alone, 22% of workers report being stressed either “always” or “most of the time”. In 2018, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) found that in just five years, work-related stress had doubled from 8% to 17%, despite Irish salaries rising. 

No matter the sector, any business can significantly suffer from stressed-out staff.
Are your staff feeling the pinch of stress? We explore workplace stress and how your business can effectively address it.
 
Workplace Stress and its Causes
Individuals can experience stress during different periods and in different realms of their personal lives. But stress originating from work-related issues is the most common.

Here’s why:
 

1. Overworking

Overworking can be in the form of longer working hours, harder tasks and less breaks. Stress as a result of an individual overworking isn’t surprising, nor is it uncommon. While some jobs call for longer periods of work at times, this shouldn’t be the norm.

Staff working longer hours can become stressed, not only about their performance but the time lost in their personal lives.

Productivity can be a key component here. A lack of productivity from an individual may mean they have to stay past 5pm to get a task finished. But more often than not, employees are given too many tasks for their working hours.

1. Mismanagement
Unfair distribution of work to some staff over others, work being given to untrained staff, or workloads not being distributed in a timely fashion are the result of mismanagement.

While staff may want to be productive, this can only take place when workplace structures are flexible and expectations are clear.

Mismanagement of staff in any of the above ways can stress out colleagues, leading job dissatisfaction and possibly a loss of talent for your business.  
 
2. Unrealistic Expectations
Having high expectations of your staff and business as a whole is positive – it shows a desire for growth and progress.

However, expectations can quickly become unrealistic if you are not careful. Productivity is important for any business, but if staff are stressed, this can hamper your ability to perform.

Expecting staff to complete heavy workloads in an unrealistic time can cause stress and hinder productivity. If staff lack critical training, and the working hours to complete those tasks, quality will suffer and so too will their mental health.
 
3. Poor Company Culture
If staff feel overworked, mismanaged and under pressure from unrealistic expectations, company culture can be poor.

The cultural pressure to work harder and for longer can take its toll on your employees. No longer will your workplace be viewed as positive by staff and their families. Your reputation as an employer may also suffer.

This cultural expectation damages an employee’s work-life balance. Becoming increasingly stressed, staff may feel demotivated and unsatisfied as a representative of your company. Your talent retention may suffer, as staff seek a better working culture, and business performance will undoubtedly deteriorate.
 
How Best to Support Stressed-Out Staff
As a business, its crucial that you work to prevent stress from taking over your staff. It can hinder productivity, deteriorate relations between staff and your company and damage your reputation as an employer.

So, what can be done?
 
1. Monitoring
Without turning into ‘big brother’, monitoring your staff, the hours they work and the tasks they can complete will indicate how overworked they may be.

This can help to resolve any mismanagement issues, with all staff benefitting from fairer task distribution and a breakdown of unrealistic expectations.
 
2. Improve Company Culture
This will not be an overnight solution. But small steps can make a difference. These include ensuring:

• All breaks are taken by staff
• All staff have the opportunity to confidentially voice concerns or issues that may be causing them to feel stressed
• Staff are offered the opportunity to get away from work stations during breaks

Company culture is crucial for employees to experience great job satisfaction. If a culture is negative, this can induce work-related stress and damage your business during the long term.
 
3. Training
Adequate training of all staff in their roles is crucial. Staff will feel stressed when they are overworked, but this can also creep-in when they feel unable to complete certain tasks.

If they are forced to take longer to complete a task, this can impede on an employee’s work-life balance.

In Ireland, mental health is now high on the agenda for employers as a way of differentiating themselves and increasing their talent acquisition. To remain a competitive employer, your business should take mindfulness training seriously.

In fact, studies have found that staff who feel the need to mask their feelings can experience exhaustion and stress.

​Demonstrating your willingness to invest in your own staff’s mental health, training in mindfulness will give employees the ability to voice concerns and ensure they are fighting fit for your organisation.  

Whether its 9-5 or shift work, balancing a job with a personal life is a common daily challenge for many of us. While the importance of your physical health cannot be understated, mental health is just as critical in the workplace.

Ireland suffers from one of the highest rates of mental illness in Europe, costing the economy a staggering €8.2 billion per year.

What are you doing to support your staff’s mental health?

Mental Health Challenges in 2019
In 2019, mental health remains rightly on top of the agenda. Last year, 1 in 8 Irish people reported suffering from chronic depression at one point in their lives. While mental illness covers a range of issues, the most common workplace issues include stress, depression, anxiety and mood disorders.

Depression and anxiety are increasingly plaguing the Irish workplace. With Irish teenagers reporting most commonly anxiety, these issues aren’t going away.

Mood disorders, including bipolar disorder, are also challenging Irish workplaces, with 45,000 Irish people suffering from BD in 2018.
 
Importance of Mental Fitness in the Workplace
Just like poor physical health, poor mental health can impact on business performance.

Staff who feel unsupported while suffering mentally are more likely to take time off, risking talent loss as a result.

Most of all, a business with a positive and fun working environment can thrive, and so too can its staff. By ensuring mental fitness is taken as seriously as physical fitness, you can foster great productivity and a healthy place to work for your staff.
 
How Your Business Can Help

• Foster an Open Culture

A company’s culture can be crucial for an employee’s mental health journey. Fostering a culture of openness amongst staff or keeping an ‘open door’ policy for colleagues will break down the stigma of mental illness.

Building approachability into the corners of your business, from senior management downwards, will go a long way in creating a healthy work environment for all.
 

• Mental Health Policy

In the age of workplace bullying and social media policies, consider putting a mental health policy in place.

Providing staff time to attend counselling sessions, hosting awareness training or having procedures in place to support staff suffering mentally will build a healthy work environment.

By putting a policy in place and taking mental fitness seriously, your staff’s work-life balance will improve, and so too will your reputation.

• Working Smart

In the past, hard work was often associated with long hours and stress. That should no longer be the case. Your business can support mental health by encouraging staff to work smarter, not harder.

Motivate staff to be productive during the day, ensure workloads are manageable and keep a check on staff who may be struggling mentally.

• Exercise and Relaxation

Show support for mental illness by hosting work exercise or relaxation classes.

Physical activity can benefit a person’s physical and mental fitness. Providing time for staff to have fun with these activities will improve your reputation and productivity. But most of all, a healthy work environment will benefit all. 
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