# Two of the Top ten disasters that occur in part or non-systemised businesses - Employee Stress!

Working as a time management and systems consultant, this is what I see in the businesses as being the biggest risks of not being fully systemised.? Not in any particular order and it’s different for each individual business.

1.???? Key person risk

2.???? Employee stress

3.???? Operational inefficiencies

4.???? Time consuming onboarding of new staff/tasks

5.???? Loss of opportunities

6.???? Business owner burn out

7.???? Relationship risks

8.???? Reputation risks

9.???? Financial risks

10.? Compliance risks

Over the following weeks, I’ll expand on each of my top 10 risks and what you can do to minimise the risk.

Part 2 of 10 - Employee Stress

What I’m seeing a lot of lately with businesses that are growing and don’t have full procedures, is a lot of unnecessary stress is put upon the staff.

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If someone is suddenly away on sick leave, leaves, goes on holiday or the business grows so fast they need to onboard new staff quickly, this adds more stress on existing staff due to one or more of these factors:-

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·????? They may have to take on more tasks and are not sure of what to do.

·????? They may have to take on more tasks and due to lack of processes it takes them a long time to complete the tasks because they have to work it out as they go along.

·????? They may have to train new staff or fill in staff in how to do the task and without up to date procedures, this can be very time consuming and frustrating.

·????? They may have to fix mistakes due to errors made because of the lack of clear procedures for the new person doing the task.

·????? They may have to try and train people quickly before they go on holiday.

·????? They may be interrupted by work during their holiday.

·????? They may have a back log of work after their holiday .

·????? They may have to fix mistakes due to errors made because of the lack of clear procedures for the new person doing the task.

·????? They may get behind in their own work.

·????? Can cause risks in compliance and general safety.

·????? Things start to fall through the cracks because of lack of time and too much stress.

·????? The list goes on and on.

Furthermore if the business owner/C.E.O./manager are too busy putting out fires due to lack of systems, they then don’t have the time or more importantly the headspace to put time and resources into such things as:-

·????? Improving culture

·????? The right recruitment solutions

·????? Staff satisfaction and

·????? Harmony within the workplace

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All of the above or lack thereof may increase absenteeism, lower retention rates, with more staff leaving or being less productive and motivated which causes even greater workload and stress and the cycle continues.

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Why is this all so important?? Because, according to a survey by the Australian Human Resources Institute, 41% of businesses believe unscheduled absenteeism’s have increased in the last 12 months and 50 % of respondents report ‘Low levels of employee engagement’ as one of the top 3 reasons for absenteeism.

Furthermore, The Australian Bureau of Statistics states ?- absenteeism costs Australian businesses around 33 billion dollars per year!?

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What can you do about reducing employee stress?

It doesn’t have to be that way. Take my client who’s main admin girl left at the end of the financial year, there busiest time as they were a Financial Services business!?However because they had all their procedures in a proven user-friendly format, they easily onboarded a new staff member with the least disruption to other staff and clients.? Within two weeks, the new girl was actually fully up to speed the same as the girl who’d been there for two years all with limited one on one training time.

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Another client gave their new admin hire the training videos and procedure documents to look at and said they’d be back later to ‘Do it with them’. By the time the business owner got back to them, they said they were all good and did not need any help at all and continued to perform the tasks to a high level the rest of the day!

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This took stress off other staff because they didn’t get behind in work and how empowered was the new staff member and it meant the business owner could tend to higher level tasks of running the business instead of doing hours of one to one training. Win, win, win.

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Take one of my vineyard clients, where the business owner was away accepting an award and they had a big maintenance problem. Due to detailed procedures and recently systemised maps that were created, the staff were able to fix the problem straight away instead of it causing more damage and adding more stress to the staff and owners.

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Plan ahead for growth:-

·????? Firstly, have the right recruitment strategies and complete recruitment systems.

·????? Have clear position descriptions, KPI’s, clear autonomy guidelines and appropriate H.R. resources for both existing staff and future hires.

·????? Have a stress free and ‘Set up for success’ onboarding process.

·????? Ensure you have training videos/procedures/checklists and relevant resources not only for existing staff but also ready to set the new hire up to win.

·????? Don’t forget to include your processes for your role as business owner/C.E.O/Manager as well so you can delegate as the business grows or for when you are absent or on that holiday overseas.

There’s a lot to capturing your systems, reach out if you’re a business owner with 5 plus staff and you’d like to have a chat around the quickest and easiest way to systemise, as this is what I specialise in, here’s how to contact me-

Linda McMahon

Time Management and Systems Consultant

0418 991 636

[email protected]

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