The Importance of Employee “Fuel” Reserves
Posted January 2nd, 2012
In looking at employee performance, some business analysts make the comparison between an employee and a gasoline tank. The point of the comparison is to describe the amount of fuel in the tank that employees have to use. And, the analysts say, the tanks are getting low.
People have physical and emotional resources that they use when they confront various situations, and people use these resources at work. When the tank needs fueling, we use things like vacations, support from friends and family, and a sense of fulfillment in our jobs to add fuel. What empties the fuel are such things as bosses who are hard to work for, worries about money, concerns about keeping a job, and heavy workloads.
When the tank is full, people have the energy and enthusiasm to take on new pressures and challenges. But when the tank is low, new pressures and tasks tend to create more problems for the person and become harder to achieve.
One example of this that was studied in detail was the response of workers when a hurricane hit, which naturally put a lot of additional stress on the employees. Research showed that the extra demands made on employees – things such as working longer hours to fill in for people who could not make it to work – caused more problems for people whose reserves were already depleted, whose gas tanks were already near empty. The extra stress actually caused a drop off in their efforts. But employees whose gas tanks were fuller were much more engaged when the hurricane hit.
When demands in the workplace increase, employees need to also increase their resources — their reserves – in order to be able to handle these demands, according to Dave Ulrich, a business analyst. When employees have more resources such as better control of their time, or the chance to learn and grow, they are better able to handle increased stress. The breakdown happens when demands outpace the resources, Ulrich says.
Several business analysts say that they see workers’ tanks nearing empty in the wake of increased demands at work after the recession. And while workers have been able to increase their productivity, the analysts say these increases will not continue if employees are not able to build up their reserves, if they are not able to put some gas in the tank.
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