Leaders should challenge their employees to help them achieve new heights in their careers. They will learn from these challenges to make practical use of their skill set in stressful situations. However, your business will suffer if they are struggling to manage the tasks.
The struggle will lead to a decline in their performance with consequences not limited to their professional life. Managers are responsible for making sure their team members are not overwhelmed with responsibilities. The test of their skill set should not stretch them enough to hurt the team and individual performance.
Another Reason to Increase Mental Health Awareness
People need a safe environment to share their problems with others. An employee struggling with a task may not come to you to explain the whole situation. For them, it is embarrassing enough to accept the failure while trying to manage a challenging responsibility.
However, it will soon take a toll on their mental health because of the increasing stress. You cannot lose a valuable asset for your organisation because of a failure to meet expectations. Managers should take the initiative to help the employees with their struggles if they have the potential to overcome the challenges.
Trust is built over time with communication and certain behavioural traits. You need to win their trust to make them comfortable while sharing the actual cause for their struggle. Businesses should support their employees going through mental health issues even if it requires 100% acceptance loans from the direct lender to increase their coverage.
Tips to Identify and Help a Struggling Employee
Leaders are responsible for making sure the subordinates are not struggling because of the overwhelming workload. You can promote the culture of challenging oneself to test their limits. However, make sure the employees are not struggling with the help of the following methods –
- Use One-on-One Meetings
Managers should remain in contact with their employees with regular meetings and conversations. They should understand your role while trying to manage difficult situations by themselves. Furthermore, it will give them the message that you are accessible to them for their problems, doubts, and guidance.
Therefore, you should conduct a one-on-one meeting now and then with each employee. They can share the progress reports for the period during these meetings to assess their performance. You will get an idea of their workload and they may share the difficulties and problems.
- Take Them Outside
A comfortable and safe environment is extremely important to make your subordinates share their problems. An office is a place where people use a formal conversation with their colleagues. Thus, you cannot expect them to open up about their problems in the stressful environment of a workspace.
You can take them for lunch or coffee to discuss the problems. It will create a friendly atmosphere to make the employees trust your intentions of helping them. They will share the problems without much hesitation to seek a solution for them.
- Observe
Your observation skill as a manager will come to use before the conversation about struggle takes place with an employee. You need to look for signs of struggle from employees’ behaviour and performance. It will help to identify a problem in its early stages to prevent the consequences in future.
A major giveaway of constant struggle with a challenging task is constant procrastination or avoidance. Start a conversation with your employee to let them share their progress. You can make them think the solution is the outcome of their mind by asking questions about their approach.
- Remove Hurdles
Your leadership style, management policies, and complex processes are some of the many reasons for the struggle of employees. They make the job difficult for them even if they have the skillset to achieve the desired results. Therefore, you should help them by removing these obstacles instead of creating a new strategy.
You can ask your employees about the difficulties they face during day-to-day operations. Find ways to remove these difficulties keeping in mind the available resources, budget, and organizational goals.
- Let Them Decide Your Role
Professionals don’t want to look incompetent or unconfident in front of their leaders, even if they are struggling. You should let them decide your role in the process to manage the problem on their own. Make sure they understand you are available for support with a subtle message during the meetings.
They can ask for suggestions or advice to overcome the temporary setbacks. Or, they can ask for help to remove the hurdle to cut the struggle. You can also give someone else the task if they are constantly failing to meet the expectations.
- Use Inputs from Others
A confrontation may not work in some cases because of the denial phase. You need to take another approach to find the cause of their struggle. Ask the teammates about the possible reason for their underperforming coworkers.
They may have the required information through a stronger personal relationship with the employee. Assure them of the help to make sure they don’t feel like betraying their friend. You can help them without them ever knowing about it.
Conclusion
To sum up, you should never ignore the signs of struggle for the employees to minimise the damage. Provide them with a safe environment to share the details and try not to force your solution on them. Moreover, you should remain available for employees to build an environment where they can ask for help without hesitation.