An age-old perception that surrounds corporate companies is that they create an unnecessary need for urgency. A need to work their employees to the point of burnout in the name of efficiency. With urgency comes stress, worry, panic and fear of the work environment. Why create this sense of urgency when it is known to lead to excess stress? Many companies believe that this urgency not only helps to increase productivity but it also helps the employees develop a sense of commitment and responsibility towards the company and their work, respectively.
Unfortunately, this is a facade and beneath it lies low-quality performance and worker unhappiness. Having a sense of urgency means doing what needs to be done immediately, without being asked and in the most thorough way possible in order to create change. The idea of this culture is to plan, strategise and ideate persistently for one’s workplace, have a sense of alertness and awareness and show results. While these factors are valid reasons to continue creating a sense of urgency within the workplace, the threshold for these factors is often overlooked or non-existent in workplaces. In the name of ‘hard work’ and ‘determination’, the health of the employees is being taken for granted.
A famous proverb states – ‘It does not work that kills men, it is worry’.
But this toxic work culture, where an unnecessary need for urgency has been created, failing the need to notice the importance of rest, has resulted in a situation where work has become the source of worry!
Hence, the solution is to create a sense of urgency WITHOUT causing stress.
- First and foremost invite the employees to understand the need for this urgency. If the employees understand the benefits of this process they are better able to focus on the advantages than the disadvantages. Quantify and visualise how their sense of urgency helps them and the rest of your organisation (fingerprintforsuccess, n.d.).
- If you are someone who holds a managerial position then aim to create an environment that you yourself would feel happy to work in. No employee would want to work within an environment that induces stress, panic and sacrifices one’s mental and physical health. Put forth values such as integrity, fairness, growth, teamwork and learning while respecting your employee’s health.
- It is important to set realistic deadlines and not idealistic ones. For a company to perform well, deadlines are essential to keep everyone on track and focused. But we all know how terrifying big deadlines can be and hence smaller deadlines would be much more beneficial in developing urgency without worrying employees. For example, setting a deadline for two weekly reports per month, rather than eight reports at the end of every month.
- While it sounds paradoxical, urgency can only be fruitful in the presence of calmness. Valuing the essence of staying calm in chaotic work culture and tackling problems with a focused mind rather than a panicked one will always be profitable for companies.
- Acknowledging accomplishments must become as important as ‘getting things done’. If the need to foster a sense of urgency overpowers the ability to recognise how much the company has achieved and grown, it beats the purpose of learning from and completing tasks and subsequently moving on to the next one.
Let us reinstate that a sense of urgency is imperative for companies to function. But having a clear sense of where and when to stop and simply taking a break is as imperative a function as that as well! However, the working environment is not only riddled with the problem of creating an unnecessary level of a sense of urgency but also other challenging situations. Therefore, an employee assistance program is essential in organisations. It acts as a pillar of support for the employees and strives to help employees cope with their problems at work and ensures their mental well-being. Additionally, ‘Employee Counselling’ is critical for maintaining workplace parity.
– Urveez Kakalia and Ferangiz Hozdar.