2007 research by NIOSH reports that anywhere from 26% to 40% of American workers find their job extremely stressful. In addition, one-fourth of Americans feel that their job is the number one stressor in their lives.⁴

Defining Burnout

Burnout is an internal, defensive response to demanding occupational situations and pressures.  It contains three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy.  Emotional exhaustion is the feeling of being “used up” at the end of the work day, and the most personal aspect of burnout.  Cynicism is taking a distant attitude towards the people one works with—either coworkers or customers.  Finally, reduced professional efficacy is the feeling the individual has about the work. An individual may feel that he/she is not good at his/her work, or not “cut out” for the line of work that he/she is in.²

Preventing Burnout

According to NIOSH, there are several reasons employees can slip into a state of burnout. It can result from factors such as heavy workload, their supervisor’s management style, lack of coworker support, uncertainty about expectations, lack of job security, and working in dangerous environments.⁴ Preventing burnout means ensuring that all of these factors are working optimally.

Countless articles have been published regarding potential interventions for burnout. Because burned out employees could be costly for an organization (lost work time, health-related costs, customer loss due to poor service), the best approach is prevention.

For those that work in professions highly susceptible to burnout (e.g. human service fields), one approach may be to involve the employees in a focus group discussion about ways to potentially reduce burnout. In a particular study of this kind, employees who were in a social work setting came up with some suggestions on how they could reduce their burnout. Employees came up with the following solutions, and the combination of these interventions resulted in reduced emotional exhaustion in the employees: ¹

• Health Club Benefits: Health club membership was offered to employees if they agreed to use it twice a week. The goal was to promote a healthy lifestyle by improving fitness which in turn would improve wellbeing.
• Better Training: Employees were provided with incentives to attend training sessions outside of work (on paid time). To avoid the potential for these sessions “feeling like more work,” one lucky attendee would win a prize.
• Decision Making Involvement: Employees were asked to actively participate in goal-setting for the organization’s future priorities and offerings.  They also had a chance to meet and speak with the decision makers at the organization.
• Constructive Feedback Sessions: Employees felt that more information about their performance would be helpful in reducing the stress they felt at their jobs. They wanted to receive both positive and critical feedback and have a chance to express their concerns with their supervisors.
• Reorganized Work Schedules: Employees expressed a desire for different work schedules to optimize their personal time.  This point is relevant for employees who work part-time or short shifts:  their desire was to get their hours all at once rather than having to leave and return in order to get their needed hours.

The researchers did not test each of these interventions separately, so there is no data to determine if any of the particular interventions were more effective than others.  However, they did find that the intervention that contained all of the above was successful.

NIOSH offers similar suggestions for preventing or reducing burnout. Ensuring frequent rest periods/breaks, allowing employees to participate in decision making, recognizing employees for a job well done, and providing development opportunities were all cited as ways to promote a healthy workplace.⁴

According to research, employees can be either burned out, engaged, or somewhere in between³.  We use several strategies to improve engagement, which are similar to the above burnout interventions. Thus, many firms may consider adopting burnout prevention into their engagement strategy, if they haven’t done so already.

If it seems that burnout is already affecting some of your employees, we suggest using the services of licensed clinical psychologists. Burnout is a serious issue that can lead to very negative outcomes that could require counseling. If your organization has an Employee Assistance Plan (EAP), ensure that it includes information on how employees can find help through counseling or other services.

Burnout can be a costly problem for organizations and their people.  Careful attention and prevention should be considered by human resources initiatives in all organizations in order to ensure the continued health of employees and their workplaces.

Amanda Harms | Associate Consultant

References:

1. Innstrand S.T., Espnes G.A., & Mykletun R. (2004). Job stress, burnout and job satisfaction: an intervention study for staff working with people with intellectual disabilities. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 17, 119–26.
2. Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (1997). The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
3. Maslach, C.  Schaufeli, W.B., & Leiter, M.P. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 397-422.
4. Stress…At Work. NIOSH Publications and Products. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/99-101/

When it comes to company culture I think author of Fit In! The Unofficial Guide to Corporate Culture, Mark Williams, says it best, “not everything that happens in a business is based on visible, objective, and formal rules”.  Something I’m sure we’ve all experienced are those unwritten rules that lie between the lines of your company handbook. They cover those little things from where you sit in a meeting to how you should address your manager. It’s these things that help define the environment of a company. Gaining a good understand of a company’s polices and “unwritten rules” can be tough enough on its own but add another location and these challenges become amplified. But all hope is not lost, there are ways to make your employees feel more aligned with your company’s vision.  After all, it’s a strong company culture that will keep turnover rates low, productivity high, and employee morale up whether it be in your corporate headquarters or half way around the world.

The Challenge

Opening multiple offices can be a logical step when facing company growth and it can also be a tremendous opportunity. One loss however in separating employees is the loss of personal interaction. A lot of company culture is built up through those conversations by the water cooler, friendly chit-chat in the hallways, or in office humor through games played among co-workers. These are all little pieces that make up what type of culture is present within your company.

These personal interactions also help set a strong foundation of good relationships and trust on which to collaborate to find solutions to work-related problems. So with multiple locations, finding ways for your employees to stay in touch can be one of your biggest challenges.

The Solution

Companies that have unified cultures, no matter how many office locations they may have, have one common trait; they are effective communicators. They value their employees’ opinions and therefore work hard to keep lines of communication constantly open. They also put effort into recognizing individual accomplishments. While the traditional company barbeque or office party may not work for those multi-location companies, there are many other methods to integrate other lines of communication and togetherness. A company blog for instance is a great way to reach your customers, but it’s also a great way to keep all of your employees in the loop about what is going on in different locations. Company reports, newsletters, or daily emails are other great ways to inform all company employees about featured company customers, a funny company story, or shine some light on what your company truly values.

At Questar, we can speak first hand on this topic having remote employees in our UK office. We work hard to make sure all of our employee feel like they’re part of a clear company mission and goal. We have found the greatest way to combat any downfalls of geographic distance is communication, communication, communication. We hold monthly, weekly, and even daily, depending on department, meetings through Skype with our satellite co-workers. This ensures that no matter what project is being worked on, everyone is aware of what has happened, what is currently being worked on, and what needs to still be accomplished in the future. Through this practice, a Questar client can call any one of our employees within that project team to get their questions answered. These meetings also help foster friendly camaraderie amongst groups. Although many of us have never met our UK colleagues in person, they are included in long-running jokes and have become close friends to employees in the US office.

Another connection between offices we make here at Questar is our company quarterly newsletter. Within this form of communication, we always showcase activities and progress made by teams in both locations. When we have companywide meetings in our US office our UK co-workers are present through our online meeting center so they are able to see and hear in real time what is being covered by our company executives.

These are just a few examples of the ways Questar is working to bridge the gap so global business doesn’t feel quite so global. We would love to hear what your company does to enhance its company culture either within one office or one hundred.

Stephanie Peterson  |  Strategic Communications and Marketing Coordinator

Last week we presented a summary of Questar’s research on talent retention at the Linkage Best of OD Summit in Chicago.  Our research explores the real reasons why employees leave – from multiple data sources.  Here are the slides from that presentation:  Overdrawn at the Talent Bank

We’d love to hear from you about your experiences and/or research around employee retention.

Enjoy!

Anna Erickson, Ph.D. | Director Consulting Services

To learn more about the SIOP conference please visit http://www.siop.org/conferences/

Many employers are making New Year’s resolutions of their own – hoping to avert this impending mass exodus of employees.  If you’re doing the same, there are some things you can do to help retain your employees in 2011.  Based on research that Questar has done on drivers of employee loyalty, here are some steps you can take to retain your best employees.

Communicate about compensation.  Employees who feel they are compensated fairly are four times more likely to stay when compared with employees who feel they are underpaid.  Conducting a comprehensive compensation market study is an important first step to ensuring your employees are fairly paid.  Then make sure your employees know how their pay compares to market value of similar jobs.

Let employees know they are valued.  Employees who say they feel valued are eleven times more likely to say they’ll stay when compared with those who don’t feel valued.  While most employees work for pay, it’s not just the money that determines whether they feel their contributions are valued.  On the contrary, our research shows that employees are most likely to feel valued when

• They are recognized when they do good work.
• Their opinions and ideas are sought out and valued.
• They feel comfortable bringing concerns to the attention of their supervisor.
• They receive frequent recognition for their contributions.

Define career paths.  Employees are much more likely to stay if they feel good about their future career with their employer.  For example, among employees who feel good about their career opportunities, 80% say they would stay with their current employer even if offered a comparable job someplace else.  Only 15% of those who are unsure about their career opportunities say that they would stay.  Regular discussion about career goals, stretch assignments, and developmental opportunities are critical to retaining your best employees.  Keep in mind that the next step for an individual employee need not necessarily be a step upward – but should provide learning for an employee’s long term career goals.

Increase exposure to senior leadership.  Trust in senior leadership is critical to employee retention, engagement, and loyalty.  (See also Dear John: A New Look at Why Employees Leave)  Employees may put up with a bad boss or uncooperative coworkers in the short term – but only if they believe in the company’s long term future.  I know, I know  – you’ve heard it before.  Transformational leadership.  Authentic leadership.  Humility.  But this stuff really does make a difference.  Make sure channels between employees and senior leadership are wide open for honest, two-way communication.

Happy New Year from the whole Questar team.  We hope that 2011 brings success and prosperity to you and your business.  And we hope your best talent decides to stick around for years to come.

Anna Erickson, Ph.D. | Director, Consulting Services

Going paperless when managing household bills is a good thing, right?  Online statements are convenient and online bill pay has become easier.  Not to mention we all want to do our part to help the environment.  Why wouldn’t a person want to “do the right thing” while at the same time making their life easier to manage?  I found out a few days ago there is a little more to think about when you choose to discard the “old way’ of doing things for a “better”, more progressive approach.

Many of us have probably taken advantage of a deferred interest program when making a household purchase.  What a great concept!  Pay off something that we really want now over a specified timeframe, and there’s no interest.  It’s “free money”, right?  Yes, if paid off by the final due date.  If not, the interest that has been deferred becomes the buyer’s responsibility.  And let’s just say, it’s not typically a low interest rate.

A year ago my family purchased a new home computer and financed it through one of the all-too-common “no interest for 12 months” plans.  The minimum payment for the item was some small, token amount so I rounded up considerably from that and proceeded to pay it off.  Just a few months ago, after receiving an email prompt, I made the decision to stop the paper statements and go paperless for this account.  I felt great about the decision…until this week.

When you open a paper statement there is typically an on-going, visible reminder of the approaching, dreaded, deferred interest due date and amount.  Once you go paperless you begin receiving an email instead that simply says “Your minimum payment of $XX is due by XX.  If you want to review your online statement please go to your account on our website”.  But I wouldn’t need to go to the website.  I am already making payments above the minimum through my banks online bill pay system so I’m fine.

The trouble is that the payment that I was making, even if above the minimum, was not enough to pay off the entire amount in 12 months.  When I finally went in to my account recently expecting to see just a small amount left to pay off I realized what happened.  There were several hundred dollars of deferred interest that had been added to my account.  This was my fault I know, but couldn’t the email have had a little more information?  If there is already variable information in the email about minimum payment and due date, why wasn’t there some alert about the approaching deferred interest due date as well?  I suspect it’s because this is a good way for the bank to make money, but as a customer who always makes payments on time, I was frustrated.

I called the customer service line and spoke to a front-line representative and explained the situation.  She listened, but said she would need to speak to a supervisor.  After returning from that discussion she informed me that there was nothing they could do – I would be responsible for the entire amount.  So, as the process goes, I asked to speak to that same supervisor.  After re-explaining the situation to the supervisor and asking if we could split the amount, she said I would need to speak to her manager.  I waited on hold for a few minutes and then spoke to a manager.  The manager informed me that she would agree to my request and I would see a credit for half of the interest amount.  I hung up the phone feeling pretty satisfied and proud of my negotiation skills.  Should I have been satisfied though?

Admittedly, I give credit to the bank for negotiating at all.  Sometimes they just say “no”.  Of course I didn’t mention yet that I had to use the line of “you may force a good customer like me to close my account if we can’t come to some reasonable conclusion”.  It did get me thinking more however about the overall customer service approach that was used, and I actually became frustrated again.  Why wasn’t there more information in the email?  Why do customers have to go through several conversations, and layers, to get something done?  Wouldn’t empowering front-line employees to make decisions like this be better for the employees and the customers?

At Questar we do our best to help organizations answer questions like these.  Empowered, engaged employees do make a difference with customers.  In addition, improved client handling processes and procedures will leave customers happy, instead of frustrated.

Steven Mars | Vice President

Employees decide to strike for many reasons.  But at the end of the day, most just want to be heard.  In that regard, they’re not alone.  At Questar we track tens of thousands of employees’ opinions about their workplace.  This research shows that many employees believe no one is listening.

• Only about half (54%) of all employees indicate that their company’s senior management values employees’ ideas and opinions.
• Those on the front lines are least likely to feel heard:  While 77% of management employees agreed with the statement above, just 43% of hourly employees did.
• Among employees belonging to a union, even fewer feel they are heard.  Only about one third of all union employees say their company’s senior management values employees’ ideas and opinions.

Obviously it’s something that many employers struggle with.  Entry level employees – eager to change the world – are often met with less than enthusiasm at their ideas for improvement.  Front line supervisors literally tell employees “Look, it’s not our job to make improvements to the process.  The guys upstairs – they decide what the process is going to be.  We just do what we’re told.”

But some companies are bucking the tide.  Front line employees at Best Buy generate an abundance of business impacting ideas.  Online tools provide forums so that every employee in the company can help solve important business issues and generate innovative solutions to problems.  These ideas from entry-level employees have been credited with increasing sales, decreasing expenses, and reducing shrink in the field.  Best Buy employees are also empowered to help customers – not just in the stores, but around the world.  Have you ever heard of @twelpforce?  Best Buy’s Twitter based help desk is literally powered by thousands of “Blue Shirts” on the floor in Best Buy stores.

Google also goes out of it’s way to gather employee input.  Employees are solicited to help solve business problems through open group sessions called “Fixits.”  Their TGIF forums provide direct access to company executives for thousands of employees.  There’s a great description of these programs in the Business Week article “Involve Your Employees,” Says Google, CEB

We’d love to hear from you.  What innovative strategies do you use to facilitate input, empower and engage employees in solving problems?

Anna Erickson, Ph.D. | Director, Consulting Services

One of my stories related to this is from a client I worked with years ago.  The main character in this story is an up and coming young executive – we’ll call her Sarah (not her real name).  Sarah was a go getter, recognized by corporate leadership for her achievements, her performance and her potential.  She was just 33 years old when she got her first chance to truly lead.  She was named president of a small division within the large global corporation for which she worked.  And boy was she ready – this was her chance to really prove herself.

This part of the business was new to her.  But Sarah was a quick study and knew just what to do.  She wasted no time evaluating the competitive landscape and identified some “quick hits” to gain market share.  She worked hard developing plans, securing resources, contacting clients, and informing key stakeholders.  She found places to cut costs, introduced efficiencies, and pushed ahead with some innovative product development.

There was just one problem.  Morale on her team was very low.  Sarah could sense it, but she couldn’t name it.  Something was amiss in the work environment.  Silos were strong.  Conflict was high.  She had lost one of her most experienced managers.  She knew she had to get people working as a team or all her hard work was for naught.

The news – and the solution – was not at all what Sarah expected.  You see Sarah had forgotten to lead.  She worked hard – early in the morning, late into the evening, weekends – she was always at work.  Her strategies were sound.  Her solutions were practical.  But she wasn’t leveraging her team.  Her team could see how hard she worked – alone – which left them feeling less than valued.

It was then that Sarah learned to let go.  She had been promoted for being a doer, but that wasn’t going to cut it anymore.  She had to learn to trust, to delegate, to empower.  Were her team’s ideas as good as hers?  Often no.  But Sarah learned to take some risks.  At times there were failures.  There’s learning in that as well.  And now her leadership team was learning together.  They would dust themselves off.  They would try again.  And they would accomplish much more as a team than Sarah ever could have imagined.

Today Sarah is a much better leader.  She’s still a brilliant, innovative, and hard working.  But she’s learned to forget how smart she is, let go, and let her team carry the torch.  As every good leader does, she learned the story was never really about her.

Anna Erickson, Ph.D. | Director, Consulting Services

What Works
Quarterly bonus payments work well for many organizations. They offer a nice compromise in that they occur often enough to maintain interest but are spaced far enough apart to give managers an opportunity to impact their scores. Compensation plans with a tiered pay out are often very effective. With a tiered pay out, most participants can achieve the lowest level of compensation, while the very highest level of compensation is reserved for only the best performers. These payments work well when they are based on two criteria:

1. Progress towards a corporate goal- Managers at or above their goal should be motivated to stay at that level. It’s easy for customer satisfaction to slip without continuous effort.

2. Demonstrated improvement over last quarter- This is also a good time to identify strong performers and set them up as mentors for those who missed the mark.

Inherent Risks
While data integrity is always of great importance in any research effort, the connection of compensation to customer satisfaction survey results on this sort of program heightens the potential for fraudulent activity. However, there are ways to establish customer feedback systems that reduce the risk of this occurring.

Take, for instance, the data integrity associated with using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) as a means of collecting customer feedback. This is a commonly used method for collecting feedback among organizations with multiple locations. Customers call a toll-free number and use their telephone keypad to input answers to questions about their experience with a product or service. Unfair survey practices using IVR data collection are noticeable in some fairly common ways:

• The survey line is called frequently within a short time period, with the calls coming from the same originating phone number.

•The survey line for a particular store receives a high number of calls on certain days of the week or month.

•The survey line has an unusual number of calls from payphones.

•Many of the calls for one store are much shorter than the average length of most calls.

•    An unusual amount of respondents give each attribute the highest rating, but avoid leaving comments for fear of being recognized.

Protecting the Data
Recognizing the damage that can result from efforts to “game the system”,  a quality survey research program should have a number of built-in protection features. On the front-end of the data collection process, some of these include: single use pass codes, monitoring blocked and duplicate phone numbers for IVR systems and tracking Global Unique Identifiers (GUID) for web surveys.

On the back-end, proper data cleaning and automated integrity reporting is critical. Often times, a sophisticated integrity report can point out potentially fraudulent behavior. It is important to keep in mind that there may be valid reasons for a location’s results to fall outside the norm in a given period, and foul play is not necessarily presumed. However, it is vitally important to monitor these factors to manage the overall integrity of any survey program. This becomes even more critical when bonuses are involved.

The Bonus Program
In addition to ensuring that your data is accurate and valid, it is important to decide how you want to apply the results to a bonus program. Every organization has a different idea of what level of performance warrants a reward. Your company must define the variables that you plan to use. With the help of employees and customers, you can create a definition of customer satisfaction. Then determine which personnel behaviors affect customer satisfaction within your company and ensure that your survey asks the right questions to assess performance in these areas.

Implementing the Program
It might be a good idea to launch a new bonus program within a pilot location. After learning from the experience of this location, you can implement the reward program in other locations. Just as it is important to monitor the integrity of the survey results, it is also important to monitor the effect of your rewards program. Make sure that your program incents the correct behaviors so that, over time, survey results reflect its positive impact.

Joseph Stanton | VP Business and Product Development

To say I’m a political junky would be an exaggeration.  But I do find the tracking of political opinions fascinating.  Our public leaders live in a fish bowl.  So many things within and outside of their control impact public support and their “job approval ratings.”  And that support in turn impacts their political clout and their ability to get things done.    At the end of the day, this lack of trust could cost elected officials their jobs.  And so the panic begins.

It’s actually very similar in the corporate world.  Okay – so maybe employees don’t have the same power to fire their employers’ leadership teams. But that lack of trust shows up in other ways. In commitment. In effort. In alignment with organizational direction.  In client after client, we’ve seen the relationship: trust in senior leadership is a consistent predictor of employee engagement, discretionary effort, and likelihood to stay with an organization.

Yes – politics are everywhere.  The biggest difference?  Our publicly elected leaders know exactly where they stand.  They labor under no illusion that everyone agrees with them.  They know precisely how many people voted for them, and in which demographics.  And dozens of polling organizations provide a constant feed of information about their strengths, their weaknesses, their level of support – and, yes, their political clout.

In contrast to that – how many CEO’s are flying blind?

Anna Erickson, Ph.D. | Director, Consulting Services