How SMART Goals Help Your Employees Stave Off Burnout

There is a fine line between motivating your team to be driven toward success at work and working so hard that you burnout. Your job as a leader in your organization is the key to guiding your employees toward balancing their goals, optimizing productivity, and not approaching burnout. Some might say, it’s working smarter, not harder. A team of overworked, burnt-out workers can leave a deep, negative impact on your culture, your ability to innovate, your recruiting efforts and, ultimately, your bottom line. The good news is with the help of SMART goals and some best practices, you can have your team working at optimal productivity, yet avoiding the crossover into burnout.

What are SMART goals?

SMART goals are tools developed to create structure and measurability around the process of setting goals. SMART goals must follow a set of criteria each and every time they are set. Instead of vague objectives that are hard to achieve, and even harder to measure, SMART goals help break down your goals into specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely tasks. SMART goal setting creates transparency and accountability, as well as increasing productivity. Here’s a breakdown of what the acronym stands for:

Specific – Goals can’t be vague or overly lofty when following the SMART model. Goals should be specific.

Measurable – Goals should also be measurable. Quantifiable goals are the only ones that can be truly measured. By setting the metric vehicle in the beginning, you’ll be able to analyze the success (or lack thereof) of your project. On way Spring-Green helps you measure your goals is through our collective knowledge base and Key Performance Indicators.

Attainable – Sure, we’d all like to set a goal of conquering the world, but that’s not the most attainable goal to set. To be successful, your goal should be something that you can actually achieve.

Relevant – In business, entire teams can get caught up in working toward goals that don’t serve relevant objectives of the company.

Timely – A goal with a deadline is the key to success. Open-ended projects are often pushed aside and left undone.

How Can Setting SMART Goals Increase Productivity?

Your team’s productivity level can be measured by how successful they are at achieving goals. The most productive teams achieve goals with less investment of time, money, and effort, and SMART goals facilitate this success. At Spring-Green we hold annual business planning sessions. It’s there that you’ll work with your personal Spring-Green business consultant to discuss your business goals and turn them into SMART goals to take back to your team. They’ll help tailor these goals to best fit your team’s professional development.

Why Does Preventing Employee Burnout Matter?

The results of a recent Gallup survey showed that of approximately 7,500 interviewed companies, 23% of their full-time employees felt burned out at work very often or always. The same report showed 44% felt burned out occasionally. Doing the math, that equates to two-thirds of the workforce involved in this survey were dealing with symptoms of burnout. But why do the results of this staggering report matter?

The same report from Gallop shows that employees experiencing burnout are less productive and more likely to quit. For businesses that are trying to cultivate a positive culture and find retention wins, burn out can be a huge detriment.

How Do I Recognize The Signs of Employee Burnout?

Employees who are routinely absent from work or routinely miss deadlines may be showing signs of burnout. A few more traits to keep an eye out for include:

• Expecting too much of themselves
• Not receiving affirmation for their work
• Feeling inadequate or incompetent
• Having unreasonable demands put upon them

If you are noticing these types of behaviors in your team members, it’s important to take proactive measures to ensure that the problem doesn’t snowball into a larger, deeper issue.

The Benefits of Increasing Employee Motivation and Productivity

In today’s ultra-competitive job market, it’s more important than ever that businesses work hard to prevent burnout. Increasing employee motivation and productivity not only helps increase output, and most likely revenue, but it also creates a happier workforce. This is increasingly essential as unemployment rates are at their lowest in decades, and workers have the upper hand in today’s tight job market. Recruiting and retention are directly correlated to how happy and motivated employees are, which brings these issues front and center.

By tapping into the SMART methodology, you’ll help set your employees up for clear expectations, easy to follow projects, and empowerment to succeed – a winning combination for the long-term viability of your business. If you’re interested in franchise ownership with Spring-Green, it’s important to note that helping you create and maintain a productive, empowered workforce is a top priority. We know that you are only as strong as the team you have locking arms with you. That’s why we create training, processes, and measurable actions to put in place to foster success in this critical area of your business.

Let’s get started with a conversation – we’re sure you’re going to be impressed!

For over 40 years, Spring-Green Lawn Care has been helping small green industry business owners across the country set meaningful goals and then make sound business plans that empower the franchise owners to meet or exceed the goals they set.

Spring-Green Business Consultants work with you and your family to understand your goals, how to achieve them, and grow your Spring-Green business. Would you like to learn more about how we do this? Call 1-800-777-8608 or visit us at www.growmygreenindustrybusiness.com to learn more.