Last time, I wrote about 5 mistakes I see at print shops.
I told you that your press operator – if distracted for 12 minutes per shift – could potentially cost your business $14,400 over a year.
Here’s the problem with that simple analysis: screen printers are prone to burnout.
When employees are burned out, they don’t print as well. They lose their mojo, get into bad habits and stop engaging with their prints. This dissatisfaction often bleeds into their personal lives and leads to depression, drug abuse, and withdrawal from family and friends.
I’m lucky enough to consult with lots of print shops (and I travel to them frequently during my day job as a sales rep). The biggest hurdle I see at shop after shop is staff burnout.
When an employee is burned out, it hurts your print shop. From the bottom line to overall morale, your entire business is harmed. Luckily, there are ways to prevent burnout.
The six components of burnoutBurnout is characterized by a chronic lack of engagement. In The Truth About Burnout, the authors point out several areas where burnout begins:
- Poor community. If the team doesn’t get along, it’s a drag.
- Stressful workload. When there’s just too much to do, work becomes a burden.
- Clashing values. If you don’t believe the same things, you don’t work the same way.
- No autonomy or control. People with no say in what they do are miserable.
- Poor rewards or pay. Raises and decent compensation are truly meaningful.
- Unfair treatment. A sense of justice needs to prevail.
When any of these areas become a persistent problem, your shop is creating a culture that encourages burnout. As mentioned above, that means your employees aren't just unhappy at work – burnout almost always bleeds into private life, too. Workers that burnout have higher rates of depression, fewer ties to their community, experience mood swings and anger problems, and are highly vulnerable to drug and alcohol abuse.
The number of times I’ve heard someone say, “That employee was great for the first year, but they’re just not as good as they used to be” is astonishing.
Maybe the worker's energy has noticeably declined. They’re disconnected from the shop’s culture. They keep their head down, and mostly do their work, but they're not improving or really enjoying what they're doing. They clock in, clock out, and that's about it. Maybe the job just isn’t what they hoped it would be. They're bored. They don't feel like there's a reason to really engage.
That is not someone I want to work with. It's not a problem I want to cause. Even more importantly, it's not someone that prints beautiful work.
Read the full article here:
https://www.printavo.com/blog/stop-print-shop-burnout
