Work is not just tasks and physical labor. There is a mental aspect that includes planning, managing relationships and handling many responsibilities. The combination of demands can wear on employees and cause burnout and performance decline.
Harvard Business Review shares the following tips to help you lighten your team’s mental workload.
- Make invisible work visible. Check in with employees regarding mental load and encourage feedback. Discover which responsibilities are the most draining and burdensome, and work with employees to see what can be eliminated or delegated.
- Be genuinely flexible. Identify core collaboration hours and protect offline hours. Establish emergency protocols, assign coverage based on capacity and give employees who step in the same support.
- Create buffers during busy periods. Reduce messages, meetings, decisions and reporting that are not essential. Teach employees how to let people know when they need uninterrupted focus, and limit requests that are not part of the team’s priorities.
- Model recovery and boundaries. Communicate when you will be unavailable and disconnect when you take time off. Celebrate employees who take personal time to show your team that setting boundaries is expected.
