Squeeze Your Fruit, Not Your People
When was the last time you squeezed your own orange juice? While I don’t do this often, I find something therapeutic about slicing the fruit in half, placing the semi-circle on the cone, pulling down on the lever, and watching the juice drain out. Once I’ve squeezed a few times, I’ll adjust the fruit and give it another squeeze or two to get as much juice as possible out of it. Left with a pummeled rind, it gets tossed in the trash or compost and I grab another and repeat until I’ve got enough juice for what I need. While this strategy is effective for getting as much juice as possible from the fruit, the same principle is not nearly as effective for getting the most out of employees.
Historically, it’s been more common than not for companies to view their people as resources that need to be maximized. Get as much out of them as you can until they get to the point where they can be replaced with someone younger, stronger, smarter or more efficient and they are cast aside like a horse being put out to pasture. Then, the same cycle is repeated over and over again as if there is an infinite number of readily available and better employees always around the corner. It represents a total disregard for the cost of high turnover and the value people bring to an organization outside of their core job responsibilities.
Today, record numbers (some estimates are over 75%) of employees state that they have experienced burnout at work. And this is even more prevalent among managers as detailed in this article published by Fast Company. Stanford researchers even found that workplace stress led to $190 billion of healthcare spending and resulted in 120,000 deaths each year.
Companies that are thriving today take a different approach. It’s not that they don’t expect people to work hard, they do. It’s that they allow team members to recharge after being pushed. They value their team members for more than the job they do and what they produce. They want them to be able to sustain longer periods of success, and don’t expect them to work until they are shriveled to a pulp. They are mindful of their employees’ overall well being. They focus on time-off, realistic workloads, and positive work environments that refuel their employees proverbial battery throughout the day instead of draining it. Even sabbaticals are becoming more common in the corporate world for employees who have been with a company for an extended period of time.
There is a fine line between challenging people to reach new heights, and the burnout that can occur when everything has been wrung out of a person. As leaders we need to constantly be able to differentiate the two. Taking care of employee’s overall well being, giving them chances to recharge, and tending to their psychological needs may not result in maximum short-term gains, however it will pay off tenfold in the long run with a much more sustainable work environment. One with improved morale, lower turnover, increased productivity and more fulfillment. One that produces plenty of “juice” for the company to be successful without squeezing the people in it.
