Many companies are facing a growing epidemic of employee absenteeism and job burnout despite their claim that people are their most important assets. Following mass layoffs over the last year, remaining employees pick up the slack, often doubling their workload, but are required to meet unreasonable deadlines. The stress builds until the employee succumbs resulting in declining productivity. Employee absenteeism, loss of valuable employees and deteriorating job performance begin to spread affecting the majority of company employees one way or another.
With the support of top leaders, the Human Resource department can make strides towards healthy productivity numbers. Often, the root of what is causing the productivity decline is a matter of perception. One has to remember that this problem originates in the mind of the individual employee who is reacting to their surroundings. Many of these employees have the perception that if they keep pushing hard to meet difficult productivity deadlines, it could lead to more work and longer hours. The cure to this perplexing problem is simply to change that perception.
Creating a culture with policies that encourage people to come to work and perform at their highest levels is the first step. One delivery services company created a new policy that states every employee is entitled to five sick days and annually pays them for every day they do not use. If employees exceed five days of sick time, it is taken from their vacation time. This new policy resulted in a 32% drop of absences.
Another way to put the fire back into job burnout is to provide training opportunities. Currently, it''s easier and less expensive than ever to manage an effective training program with the help of automation through technology. Revamping your orientation program and combining it with a rigorous training program will engage employees right from the beginning.
Remember productivity works both ways, what you input in is what you will output. Companies whose HR professionals invest the time, effort and creative solutions produce the highest productivity numbers.
© 2002 by Kenexa Corporation. All reproduction, promotion and advertising of the Work shall include full credit to the author of the Work and shall be pre-approved by Licensor.
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