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As a business owner, the buck starts and stops with you. It’s important to help employees thrive in their roles. However, employees are anxious. Americans as a whole are anxious. Almost 20% of adults in the United States have a diagnosed anxiety disorder. Many people in general report feeling a low-grade anxiety.
Employment anxiety is also high for Americans right now. People who are anxious about their jobs, and things outside of their jobs, are less able to perform their duties. They make decisions based on stress, or are paralyzed by fear and can’t make a decision at all. Anxious people are also more likely to lash out at others, and take even light feedback much more personally. Anxiety, if it gets worse, can also lead to negative effects on physical health. Business owners are responsible for their employees’ livelihoods.
Though no one can predict the future, you can control how you treat your employees, and show them you care. Establishing a culture that addresses employee concerns is vital for a healthy business.
Cultivate trust.
A thriving business is one where people trust each other enough to work well together. As the boss, you can make sure that your employees feel empowered to speak up about what’s causing them anxiety in the job. Whether it’s related to business processes or communication issues, they should trust each other enough to share their feedback.
Some of the best ways to cultivate trust:
- Establish regular one-on-ones. Consistent check-ins give employees the space to share what’s on their mind.
- Solicit feedback anonymously. If anyone is nervous to share information directly, give them a space to do it without fear of it getting traced back to them. Even if it’s a complaint, it’s important to keep the channels open.
- Implement employee suggestions. Even though it’s hard to give up control as a business owner, actually taking employee feedback and using it to change your processes is a great idea. They’ll notice, and feel more invested in their work.
When trust is established, employees are less anxious because they won’t worry about retaliation or negativity when they share their feedback.
Foster growth opportunities.
Ideally, you want your employees to grow into new roles with you. They hone their skills with your company, and you can help them take on new challenges. Anxious employees may feel stuck in their roles. Reminding them that it’s a group effort, and you want to see them succeed, will go a long way.
These are the questions to ask your employees to help them grow:
- What’s the most exciting part of your role?
- Once you have an answer, you can give your employee more responsibilities that they’ll be interested in pursuing.
- What new skills do you want to learn?
- Employees can branch into a new role entirely, or build more skills in their existing role.
- Who’s your career idol?
- Instead of asking where they think they’ll be in five years, ask an employee who they want to emulate. If it’s someone in your shared field, you can put together a plan for growth.
Outside of regular business operations, you can help your employees find networking opportunities in your industry. Encourage employees to network with each other, or help them search for people outside the company and in the industry to have coffee chats and brain-picking conversations.
Schedule employee appreciation time.
Finally, make sure employees know you see their work and know they’re doing it well. Looking for positivity helps your overall mindset as a business owner, and it establishes a good company culture.
We recommend establishing a cadence of employee appreciation rituals. You don’t have to do them all the time, but reminding yourself of these ideas on a regular basis is a good practice to get into.
Daily: Find someone to thank for their work, or congratulate an employee on their accomplishment. The more you share positivity, the less anxious employees will feel.
Weekly: Share wins with the team and name who’s responsible for them. Everyone wants to feel like their hard work is appreciated, and it encourages people to work harder.
Monthly: Have employees submit anonymous compliments and share them at an all-hands meeting. Try to make sure all employees have at least one, and keep things equal. However, give the space for a standout employee to get their flowers, too.
Yearly: Set up an event, whether it’s a group dinner, a team-building trip, or public praise for employee performance. It doesn’t have to be a big, expensive event, but some type of annual tradition will go a long way in building culture.
Think creatively about benefits.
Whether you have a large team of full-time employees, a group of part-timers, or occasionally work with freelancers, you can help ease anyone’s employment anxiety by brainstorming how to make it worth their while.
- Invite guest speakers for group learning
- See if you can get your employees perks at other businesses (like discounts at yoga studios or local lunch spots)
- Provide detailed LinkedIn endorsements for your employees
- Highlight employee work on your company website
There are plenty of ways to give anxious employees a boost with good benefits, even if you aren’t yet ready to provide the full-time employee benefits.
Respect their lives outside of work.
No one is a 24/7 work machine. Demonstrate a commitment to work-life balance. Anxious employees tend to overwork.
- Set “off hours” for the business. Whatever working arrangements you have with your employees, make sure they know when to shut down their computers at the end of the day. Even if they work on their own time, communicate actively about due dates and ensure no one is pulling multiple all-nighters for no reason.
- Offer flexible scheduling. When you can, let employees swap shifts, pick the days that suit them best, or set hours that fit their lives. That flexibility goes a long way for working parents, caregivers, and anyone balancing a side hustle or two. You could also give employees the option to work from home, which comes with benefits for your team and your business.
- Mental health days. Make sure that mental health days are understood as part of sick days. If an employee is truly feeling too anxious to work, no one will have a good time.
- Know when to take your own breaks. Model the behavior you want to see in your employees. Approaching anxious burnout won’t help you do your job better, so taking care of yourself is hugely necessary. Read more about how you can manage your anxiety as a business owner.
At the end of a particularly long and arduous day, remind everyone to take a deep breath.
Looking for guidance?
An entrepreneur’s role is hard. You may have your own anxieties running through your head, and you have to take your own mental health as seriously as your employees.
If you’re looking for more ways to delegate tasks and level up your business, chat with Velo about streamlining some of your operations. ZenBusiness and our trusted experts are here to help.
¹https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/any-anxiety-disorder
