Your Employees Are Worried - Can You Do Anything to Help?

Rebecca Mazin
Fri, 03 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

New unemployment numbers indicate that more Americans are working. That's great news. But the most recent Harris Poll Jobs and Benefits Security Index tells us that your staff is very likely to be worried at work. Stress on the job is not surprising, but these survey results about employee stress raise a few red flags for employers to review and take steps to counteract.

The work just keeps piling up

"Two people used to do my job; now it's just me," is a refrain I hear a lot. When I dig a little deeper this is not always the case. Yes, one person may have been laid off but often the head count cut was due to a drop in business so the workload is not actually double. I know, not always; there are people who are expected to wear a plethora of hats. More than half of the Harris Poll respondents, 53%, feel they are expected to do more work, without earning additional money, over the next three months. You can perpetuate the cloud or dust off those job descriptions, make sure they reflect the work that should be done and share them with employees. You may just find that there are some tasks that take time in the workday that are no longer necessary, can be reassigned or delayed.

Taking a cut in pay and hours

Salary freezes have not been making headline news as they did in 2009 and are certainly far less common but the message does not seem to have been heard by a fair number of employees with 24% reporting to Harris that they expected to have their salary or hours reduced in the next three months. If business forces you to make these cuts you should certainly not change a decision because employees are worried. You should make certain that your entire staff understands your compensation policies including when and if they can expect an increase. Tell them too whether projected raises will be across the board or based on performance, and don't keep the potential payout amount a secret. National averages for 2013 wage increases continue to hover somewhere around 3%. With this kind of average employees should know that while there may be an occasional 3% or even 4%, there will also be 2% and potentially 1% raises.

The grass may not be greener

An oddly encouraging figure for employers in the Harris results shows that only 55% individuals who took the survey feel that they would be able to find a new job if they looked for one. This is a reduction from 61% of those who answered similarly the previous month. So your people may be sitting tight, happy to be employed. We don't want employees to stick around simply out of fear of being unable to find a better role, we do want to thank them for the good work they do and build a foundation that makes them want to stay.

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