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Give workers more control over how they do their work.
According to research, having little control over how work is done may help with mental health but also with greater chances of getting heart disease. Furthermore, the combination of high work demands and limited job management raises the risk of diabetes and death from cardiovascular causes dramatically. Even minor improvements in worker autonomy can have a significant impact on employee well-being. For example, a research done at a customer service call centre discovered that providing additional training so they could take on more jobs and settle more customer complaints by themselves boosted both the employees’ well-being and their job performance.
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Allow employees more flexibility about when and where they work.
Several studies have demonstrated that providing employees with more flexibility or control over their work schedules enhances their mental health. This can be as simple as allowing different starting and stopping hours and easier shift swapping in jobs that must be done on-site. A more extensive work redesign at a Fortune 500 company, in which IT employees were given control over when and where they did their work while still collaborating with their teammates to ensure needed coordination, resulted in improved physical and mental health for employees as well as lower turnover for the company.
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Increase the stability of workers’ schedules.
Today, many retail and service businesses utilise “just in time” scheduling to try to match labour to variable demand. However, inconsistent, unpredictable schedules make it difficult for frontline workers to balance their personal life and family obligations. According to research, workers with this type of unpredictable work schedule experience a variety of unfavourable impacts, including worse sleep quality and increased emotional discomfort.
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Provide employees with opportunities to identify and solve workplace problems.
Allowing employees to engage in workplace improvements can be an effective way to promote their well-being. One research of doctors, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners discovered that individuals allowed to participate in a structured process of identifying and addressing workplace problems had lower rates of burnout and higher levels of job satisfaction. personnel who had opportunities to collaborate on problem solving were also less likely to declare they wanted to leave their job, which can be a significant benefit for organisations looking to keep valuable personnel.
Related link: 5 WAYS TO MANAGE YOUR MENTAL HEALTH
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Keep your organisation adequately staffed, so workloads are reasonable.
According to research, long hours or pressure to work very hard or quickly, can have a significant impact on employee health and well-being. Numerous studies have found that excessive demands combined with poor control produce health problems, such as increased rates of depression, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. Staffing up to spread out the responsibilities may appear expensive, but firms pay a real cost when fatigued or unwell staff burn out, are absent, or resign. A targeted change in personnel may be the solution; for example, one researcher reported improvements in productivity and job satisfaction when doctors were given a medical scribe trained to take over some of their charting chores.
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Encourage managers in your organisation to support employees’ personal needs.
Many employees are also carers for children or elderly parents, and they benefit from managers who are more understanding of the difficulties they experience in balancing their work and personal life. Employees whose managers were more supportive of their family requirements had less risk indicators for cardiovascular disease and also slept better, according to a study conducted in nursing homes. Training programmes for managers to enhance family-supportive behaviours have been studied in health care and grocery store settings, with positive results for work-life balance and health. Employers benefited as well, because employees whose supervisors received this training reported higher job satisfaction, better job performance, and less desire to leave their positions.