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While you might have been able to survive as a solo business entity in the early days of your entrepreneurship, successful growth is reliant on your ability to ensure the right team to keep your passion alive across more revenues. From employing individuals with expertise that you don’t possess to simply hiring promising candidates that can spread the load, the chances are that you’ve put a whole lot of heart into bringing together the best possible team. So, you’ll want to look after them to ensure that they stick around.
The trouble is that you’re so passionate about what you’re doing that it’s all too easy to push your team a step too far without realizing it. When that happens, burnout that can take a significant toll on the mental wellbeing of your employees is almost inevitable, and it can quickly see you losing entire teams if you don’t address it fast. The question is, what mistakes do you need to avoid to make sure that you don’t fall foul to this common first-time mistake?
Be careful of overworking
At its core, burnout that impacts as many as 52% of American employees is a result of overwork. Unfortunately, this is also one of the most common employment mistakes made by impassioned entrepreneurs who are quite happy to stay awake half of the night to pursue leads/product developments. But, remember – even an enthusiastic team is unlikely to be passionate enough to give their lives over to whatever you’re doing.
As such, avoiding burnout relies on your ability to cut back on the overtime that you expect as standard, and allow employees to truly leave the office at 5 when they’re supposed to. Implementing automation processes like intelligent process discovery can prove especially useful here for streamlining workloads that make it possible to shorten the working day without repercussions. Introducing in-office benefits like a break room can also help to encourage team members to take a much-needed break in the middle of the day, and to be far happier/more productive as a result.
Always avoid underappreciation
Employees who fought to find their way onto your team will likely be more than happy to dedicate their best skills to ensure company results. Unfortunately, employees who feel those skills and efforts go underappreciated can also quickly find themselves feeling burnt out in ways that they might not otherwise.
After all, a difficult project is going to feel like far more of a mountain to climb if they know there’s no chance of benefits like bonus pay packets or prospective promotion at the other end. Not to mention that the less you praise your team, the less confident in their abilities they’ll become, and low confidence means that even tasks that were once simple could feel a whole lot harder to manage. To avoid this, always praise good work where it’s deserved, and make sure that your team members are well aware of any prospective opportunities for growth as a result of that appreciation.
Don’t make way for dysfunctional dynamics
As you’ll know if you’ve ever spent time working on the floor in an office, the environment and team that you work within are as much an indicator of workplace happiness as your management team and job role can be. Certainly, teams that are friendly and willing to help each other can transform workplace experiences, leaving team members feeling refreshed and happy at work most of the time. By comparison, isolating dysfunctional office dynamics can quickly lead to burnout, not least because such employees are rarely willing to help one another.
Unfortunately, as a first-time entrepreneur, you might not even realize that these issues are bubbling under the surface until it’s too late. After all, employees typically hide in-house bickering or even bullying from the person up-top. Obviously, employing or outsourcing an HR team is the best way to ensure unbiased oversight that keeps these issues out in the open, but you’ll also want to take steps like feedback systems and regular team meetings to ensure that everyone’s working together, and avoiding the drain that a venomous workplace can have otherwise.
Conclusion
Burnout is perhaps the single leading cause of high job turnovers in the business world right now, especially as more industries than ever face major overhauls to stay ahead. Ensuring positive outputs and the passion that you need from everyone to succeed relies on your ability to avoid this eventuality, and sidestepping these mistakes provides perhaps the most reliable opportunity to make that happen.
