Employees can’t be at their best and most productive if they never get a break. Time away from their workstations and workplaces is rejuvenating. It serves as a chance to relax and refresh, allowing them to return with renewed focus. Plus, it makes work-life balance easier to maintain and can play a critical role in battling burnout.
Fortunately, giving your employees the gift of time isn’t overly difficult. If you want to boost engagement by ensuring your workforce gets suitable breaks from their duties,
Here are Some Tips That Can Help:
Encourage Employees to Leave Their Workstations for Breaks and Lunches
When an employee remains at their desk for their break or lunch, there’s a strong chance they won’t fully use the time to relax. Instead, they may feel that they should continue focusing on work tasks. Alternatively, they might get pulled into their duties by another person who doesn’t realize they’re on break.
Make sure that employees know that stepping away from their workstations during breaks and lunches is broadly preferred. Additionally, have break areas that are comfortable and accessible. It’s also critical to make sure that managers don’t make a habit of working through breaks and lunches, ensuring they lead by example instead.
Set Healthy Boundaries and Limit After-Hours Expectations
Today, the world is highly interconnected. Mobile technology and work-from-home arrangements often mean that employees constantly have access to company resources or communications. As a result, some may struggle to completely walk away when the workday is done. Additionally, this significant degree of connectivity can cause some managers to adopt expectations about after-hours work, essentially forcing employees to maintain an always-on mentality.
Instead of allowing work to bleed into their entire lives, make sure to set healthy boundaries and limit after-hours expectations. Give employees permission to fully disconnect at the end of the day or use technologies that prevent access outside of their designated hours. Also, ensure that managers don’t intentionally or incidentally make disconnecting seem like a non-option and instead encourage employees to set aside their duties after hours.
Promote the Use of Vacation Time
Vacation time allows employees to take breaks from their work to relax or handle personal responsibilities. However, many feel hesitant to use this benefit, are actively discouraged from requesting time off, or struggle to get a vacation approved due to internal processes.
Instead of creating obstacles to the use of vacation time, actively promote the idea. Encourage early planning that allows managers to handle coverage and make sure supervisors focus on finding ways to approve the absences instead of saying no. Have fair, flexible policies in place to guide decisions regarding leave use, as well as simple systems for making requests.
Want to Give Your Employees the Gift of Time? Top Notch Personnel Can Help
Whether you need to secure a temporary worker to cover an employee’s vacation or want to augment your team long-term to reduce workloads, Top Notch makes finding right-fit job seekers in Wichita easy. Contact us to find out more about our flexible and comprehensive recruitment and hiring services today.
