Yes, those are things we should tell our family and friends. They are also 100% the things we should tell employees. What makes a difference for employees other than pay? Knowing that the work they do is appreciated and makes a difference. How will they know if you don’t tell them? How will they know that you notice their effort if you don’t tell them you notice it?
One glaring example of this is mental health. How many of your managers have even the barest of training in how to deal with mental health issues on their team? How many have more than a cursory knowledge of what your employee assistance program offers and the requirements for accommodations for your area and industry?
There’s a reason this is happening in Europe, and I have no doubt you’d find the same thing in the US. Our Employee Assistance programs try to help the individual when it’s the system that is the problem. You can’t solve the problem if you don’t identify it.
I’ve mentioned before that in some of the worst of my mental health struggles, I had a manager who helped me manage the process and was incredibly supportive of me doing what I needed to do, and I later had a manager who made the entire thing awkward and unbearable for me. This was at the same company. Nothing about the rules or the program changed, but my manager did. That made all the difference between me staying and being productive and walking out the door.
Could you do something for me? The next time you try to schedule a thirty-minute meeting with someone and see a thirty-minute break between long stretches of committed time, leave that time for them. Find a different time, if possible. Or go even further and commit to finding a time not immediately before or after another meeting. Let people have a few minutes. It’s good for all of our mental health.
If you were burned out, overworked, and struggling to keep up with the demands of the job, and a tool promised to save you 30 minutes or more to get your work done, you’d figure out how to use it, too.
Of course, most of them are trying to use these tools without training and instruction from the company, so this is risky. One, because you have no idea what they are doing and what results they’re getting. Two, they might become even more burned out trying to teach themselves before they get to the part where it helps them save time.