Happy, engaged, and hard-working employees are important for any business to succeed. That’s why business owners do their best to implement awesome employee benefits to make everybody happy.
But sometimes, despite the company’s efforts, employees are still disengaged and lackadaisical. Yes… employees do get bored.
In this post, we’ll drill down 3 reasons why employees get bored. So if you’re a business owner or CEO, you better take notes!
Repetitive Tasks
Sure, employees signed the contract completely aware of their job description and role… But doing the same thing over and over again will take a toll on ANYONE.
If an employee keeps doing tasks every single day, it’s expected that boredom will soon strike.
How to counter this? MIX IT UP.
As an employee:
If you’re an employee who’s starting to get bored, you should be upfront with your manager. Let him/her know that you feel like you can do more than what you’re currently doing.
Ask to be involved in other tasks. Have the initiative! Your manager won’t know you want to do more if you don’t say a thing.
As a manager:
Don’t be afraid to mix it up. Give your employees new tasks to do. You hired that person because you believe in him as an individual, so it wouldn’t hurt to try and entrust him with a new task.
By letting your employee do something new, you’ll likely give a jolt of excitement and a strong sense of responsibility to your employee – which is a good thing to boost productivity.
Lack of Compliments / Words of Encouragement
This may sound strange, but it’s a real issue. A recent study show that 65% of employees feel unappreciated at work.
When employees feel that they’re not appreciated in the office, they eventually get bored.
Employees VALUE their manager’s compliments and words of encouragement. An immediate boost in morale happens when an employee hears simple compliments like “Good job!” or “Nice work!”
As a manager, you can even take it up a notch and give your employee a reward or a token of your appreciation for a job well done.
These little things will go a long way.
Work-Life Imbalance
Working hard should always be top priority, but play time shouldn’t be neglected as well.
Employees who work too hard end up drained eventually. It’s not sustainable to render overtime every single night.
If you’re an employee who stays at work for 2-3 hours more than your required shift 90% of the time, you’ll eventually run out of gas and get bored at work.
The answer? Find a better work-life balance.
As an employee:
Your job provides for your family’s needs, but it is not your entire life. Don’t spend all of your time at the office. Leave some time for yourself and for your family.
Come home and have dinner with your family. Hang out with your friends on Friday nights. You have a life outside of work, so make the most out of it.
You can work hard without having to kill yourself with stress. Not only is it not good for your company, it’s also dangerous to your health.
As a manager:
Don’t put too much pressure on your employees. Giving unrealistic deadlines will leave your employee with no choice but to work overtime every day. That’s something that is proven to be unproductive in the long run.
If you notice that your employee is working too much or rendering too many OTs, talk to him and encourage him to take a vacation leave. Advise him that he doesn’t need to spend every working day on overtime. Not only will your employee become more productive, it will also be good for his health — which is something you should also prioritize.
Conclusion
Employees get bored because they don’t feel empowered. As a manager, it’s also your responsibility to make sure that your employees feel happy and valued at work.
As an employee… If you feel bored all the time, then you have to re-evaluate yourself. Discuss it with your manager and work on fixing the issue together.
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