Boredom in the workplace is just natural with any organisation. Although this is a common situation, business leaders must not underestimate its impact to the company’s improvement. Boredom will lead to a lack of interest in the job, a decrease in the productivity, consistency, and also quality of work. The excitement of the employee decreases and they lose the motivation to work. It may also be a reason for an employee to quit their job. Therefore, business leaders must need to know the root of this problem, address the problem of boredom, and take the best course of action.
There are different reasons why employees get bored with their work. Here are the reasons for employee’s boredom in the workplace as suggested by mybusiness.com.au.
· The nature of work is not interesting
· Too many or poorly executed meetings
· Lack of diversity within the role
· Not feeling challenged by assignments
· Not enough work to do
· Don’t enjoy interacting with colleagues
· Poor or inefficient management
· Overburdened by strict policies and procedures
· Lack of understanding of the significance of their role
So how can employers turn this down to a positive attitude? Here are some tips that can help:
1. Provide training
It is better to educate your employees first than seeing them doing nothing because they do not know what to do with the new task that you had given them. This will also enhance their knowledge about their job. You can also provide them with learning new set of skills that are interesting like letting them attend seminars or workshops. Giving them multiple skills just to keep them active.
2. Job rotation
Another strategy to get your employees out of boredom is to have them switch jobs. This will only be applicable for employees that have less responsibilities. Exchanging of task to do can help employees to learn more and may also see the bigger picture of their work. Through this employees will less likely get bored being stuck in doing routinely task.
3. Promote a healthy lifestyle
Provide healthy food in the workplace if possible. Healthy foods keeps the body full of energy while feeling less bloated. Too much food can be a reason for sleepiness. Encourage your employees to do exercise because this can improve the employee’s happiness and drive to work productively.
4. Give more responsibility
An employee will really be bored if he had a lot of idle time than having work to do. In this case you might have been underestimating your employee so better give him something more to work on. On the other hand, employees who seem to see that they have nothing to do must speak up and ask their supervisors for something that they can do. This will show the employees wiliness to exert more effort for the company. This will lighten the job, decrease boredom, and increase productivity.
5.Communicate
Always ask for an update what are the employees doing and have done and if they have anything to do next. Take a track of the employees’ improvement and inquire if they like what they are doing, what do they feel with their work, and ask for suggestions and feedback if there are any useful ideas that the employee can contribute.
In short pay attention to your employees and their needs as this will save your business in the end.