Emotional availability, loosening the cognitive load and creating a humanity-focused environment are just some of the ways leaders can help their burned out employees.
With the Great Resignation raging on and healthcare's burned out workforce, it's more important now than ever for leaders to know how to manage and lead exhausted staff. Here are four tips for doing so, offered in a March 25 report in the Harvard Business Review.
- Lead by example by actively showing employees your humanity. Having mental flexibility and being able to admit mistakes is one of the first steps that can bring relief and trust between leaders and staff, as well as being emotionally open.
- Actively engage staff in crowdsourcing ideas for how to minimize stressors in the workplace. Ease anxiety in the workplace by making staff feel safe to be themselves and come as they are.
- Create checklists, back-up plans and protocols to ease the cognitive load of staff and streamline their workflow so they can focus on safely and successfully doing their jobs.
- Leaders should remind their staff of the big picture and the meaningful aspects of the job at hand as motivation.