CHECK-IN MOMENTS
INTRODUCTION
With regard to stress and work pressure, a form of company blindness may have arisen. No matter how well you try to get a picture of the organization and see through it, there may still be blind spots.
To discover these blind spots and become a burnout-proof organization, you need a number of steps. In addition to knowledge about mental issues, a burnout employee and a periodic MOT, it can help to create more awareness about the causes of burnout within the organization.
To uncover these causes, it can help to create fixed check-in moments. Moments when employees can tell: how they are doing, what is on their minds, where any stress is, what is going well and what can be improved.
Sometimes completely different causes come to light. You can now see certain insights about work processes, pressure, communication problems, etc., because you actively seek them out. You can also detect stress in the private sphere with this (but I will discuss that separately).
How you can organize these check-in moments and what the conditions are, I describe below.
Happy reading!!
TOGETHER
Before we even start working on this, we will first have to create the conditions in which we feel safe to say this. I think the question of whether the organization can tolerate this criticism is relevant. Are the new insights taken seriously or does it disappear into a drawer and we never look at it again?
We want to ensure that we dare to be open together and dare to name the risks within the organisation. I will describe how to achieve that in a separate piece, but for now it is good to continue organizing the check-in moments.
CHANGE
Within each (e):
-team
-organization
-section
you can organize these moments in different ways. You should:
-be able to actively create, for example at the end of the week. You then visit the employees to ask how they are doing. Some people have a threshold to come up with their ideas or problems. Then actively looking it up can help to tell what is going on.
-at a fixed time in the week/month. You then create a walk-in hour. This also lowers the threshold. After all, the employees know where to find you, because you are in a fixed place. Employees can also think in advance about what is bothering them and thus think about their problems and perhaps also come up with a solution.
-as a regular topic during a consultation or a meeting. So that you give people the space to talk about this and exchange ideas about it.
Some people will only need a single conversation. Others need multiple conversations to reach a solution. You need a coach who can guide you.
Also, you won’t always need these moments. Especially during the busy period, these moments are useful. But in the quieter period, these check-in moments may be less necessary.
GROW
The success of this policy depends on respect. Both for the person who has a problem, and the person who organizes the check-in moment. From this respect, you can grow into an organization in which there is room for daring to express your problems openly and honestly.
Putting problems on the table is very vulnerable. People don’t just flaunt it and it’s not necessarily nice for the organization to hear that things aren’t going well.
Nevertheless, you will notice that the organization grows when people dare to express themselves. You grow into an organization of TOGETHER instead of alone.
Eventually, these moments can become a permanent fixture within the organization. Moments when people can express their problem.
TRUST
If you manage to create an atmosphere in which people also dare to express their workload and stress problems, it creates a lot of trust.
People feel heard, seen and ultimately burnout will occur less.
SUMMARY
Organize these moments, and you will come to different insights.