If many colleagues are absent at the same time, this often pushes the healthy ones to their limits. What can you do to reduce the stress? And how should managers react?
Stubborn colds, still Corona or sometimes simply exhaustion: If many colleagues are absent at once, this often increases the pressure on the healthy ones: Tasks cannot wait, production has to continue at the usual pace.
“Many employees assume that their boss has to perceive this overload, but they are often far too stressed for that themselves,” says Cologne psychologist Anne Katrin Matyssek. So the employees just grit their teeth, wait for help – and feel a bit heroic. An unhealthy strategy, according to Matyssek, who advises companies on the subject of healthy employee management.
Exhaustion and overwork can then express themselves in very different ways – physically and mentally: You are unconcentrated, dissatisfied and irritable, make mistakes, have no more time for the lunch break and no longer want to meet up with friends after work. Some may also reach for a cigarette more often, others sleep poorly or feel tachycardia. “These are all alarm signals,” says Matyssek. “Then you should urgently ask for an interview.”
But what’s the best way to go about it? Even if the entire team suffers from the situation – storming into the boss’s office in full strength, Matyssek does not think it is very effective. The manager then quickly feels pilloried. Instead, she recommends one-on-one meetings, in which you should go with concrete suggestions: How can tasks be prioritized differently? What can be left undone in order to fulfill the important new order on time?
“It’s best to emphasize the common goal,” says Matyssek. For example, this could be: “It is in both of our interests that the quality of the work is right.”
However, a high level of sick leave is also a challenge for the team leader or department head. What to do if you don’t see any possibilities to remedy the situation? For example, because the budget and position plan do not allow for additional staff or because you get in trouble yourself if the key figures are not correct at the end of the month.
“It is crucial for the mood in the team that the problems caused by the high level of sick leave are not downplayed, but made transparent,” says Henryk Lüderitz, executive coach from Düsseldorf. Otherwise, the employees felt that they were not being taken seriously. “This means potential is lost.” And they are urgently needed now.
Instead, he advises looking for ways to relieve oneself in a conversation: Can tasks be outsourced? Can presentations be made less complex?
That’s not always enough: “You may come to a point where all resources are exhausted and the overload still remains,” says Lüderitz: “Then you have to say openly: “That’s all I can do at the moment.” What it’s better not to as a manager: make promises that you can’t keep.
However, one should not only keep an eye on those who work, but also on those who call in sick – that too is quite a balancing act. Some drag themselves to their desks coughing and sniffling and have to be sent home. Others stay in bed but feel guilty about not being able to get their work done.
Anne Katrin Matyssek recommends taking the pressure off. You can choose phrases like this: “We need you here, of course, but we need you fit.” Or: “We will miss you, of course. But health always comes first!”
But maybe there is also someone in the team who is not as ill as claimed. “This happens less often the better the atmosphere in the team,” says executive coach Lüderitz: “Appreciation, understanding and humanity” are therefore the top priority when dealing with healthy and sick employees alike.
“And if there are signs that someone is excluded because of frequent absences, for example due to a chronic illness, then the manager must take a clear stand against it,” says Matyssek.
More and more companies are also using health offers for the workforce as an anti-stress measure, from mindfulness seminars to yoga courses. In principle, it is good if the company cares about the well-being of its employees, says psychologist Matyssek. “But some of these measures are nothing more than a band-aid and do not change the causes of the exhaustion. Changes at the organizational and structural level are more important.”
She suggests that there could also be more flexible working hours after an illness. Gradual reintegration is often practiced after a long, serious illness, “but why shouldn’t that also be possible after a flu?” says Matyssek: “Maybe you don’t have enough strength for full-time, but for half a day.” Some personnel bottlenecks could possibly be alleviated in this way.
