Stress, overwork and monotony: how does personnel planning affect the well-being of your employees?

Category: FAQ

Excerpt: Stress management in the workplace: With opcycWFM you minimize overload and monotony through precise personnel planning, promote the mental health of your employees and increase service quality at the same time.

When everyday work becomes a burden

Working in a service center is demanding: high customer requirements, complex work processes and strict performance indicators determine the daily work routine. But how do these factors affect the well-being of employees? Studies show that stress, overwork and monotony in the working environment not only affect employee satisfaction, but can also have a lasting impact on their productivity and service quality.

Current studies

According to the “State of the Global Workplace Report” von Gallup aus dem Jahr 2023 gaben 41 % der befragten Mitarbeitenden weltweit an, am Vortag viel Stress erlebt zu haben. This represents a slight decline from 44% in 2022, but remains higher than the pre-pandemic average.

In this context, the study “Work 2023” by Pronova BKK that 9 out of 10 employees in Germany experience stress-triggering factors in their everyday working life. The 18 to 29-year-olds are particularly affected. The main cause of stress is an uneven workload distribution (35%).

Unpredictable and changing working hours are also among the biggest stress factors for employees. According to the ” Stress Study 2023” by Swiss Life Germany, 61% of respondents stated that predictable working hours are one of the most important prerequisites for their well-being.

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) reports in its report “Occupational safety and health in Europe: state and trends 2023” that monotonous work processes and a lack of challenges in the workplace can lead to mental stress such as bore-out, which affects employees’ mental health.

Unzureichende Pausen und nicht eingehaltene Ruhezeiten sind ein weiterer zentraler Stressor. According to an analysis by the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) Lack of breaks increases the error rate and the risk of accidents at work by up to 30%. Mitarbeitende, die keine ausreichenden Erholungsphasen haben, leiden zudem häufiger unter Erschöpfung und langfristigen gesundheitlichen Problemen.

These stress factors can lead to serious health problems, including burnout, depression and other stress-related illnesses. They also affect job satisfaction and motivation, which in turn has a negative impact on productivity and service quality in the company.

Prevention through workforce management

A modern workforce management system (WFM) such as opcycWFM can help companies to tackle the challenges described in a targeted manner:

Demand-oriented planning: Precise forecasts and automated shift planning reduce employee overload. Die Planung berücksichtigt Spitzenzeiten und sichert so eine ausgewogene Auslastung.
Individual preferences: Employee preferences such as preferred shifts or flexibility are taken into account. Dies erhöht die Zufriedenheit und reduziert die Monotonie im Arbeitsalltag.
Real-time monitoring: Thanks to real-time analytics, companies can react quickly to unforeseen events, such as sudden sick calls or increased call volumes.
Motivation: Self-service portals enable employees to actively participate in planning. Durch gezieltes Cross-Skilling entstehen zudem abwechslungsreichere Tätigkeiten.

Effects of modern workforce management systems on employee satisfaction

The introduction of modern workforce management systems has led to significant improvements in personnel planning within companies. According to a Study by Forrester Companies that use a WFM solution were able to reduce the number of overtime hours by up to 50%. This not only reduces the workload for employees, but also leads to a significant reduction in costs. In this context, companies can achieve a return on investment (ROI) of up to 376% by implementing a WFM system.

Another positive effect is the increase in productivity. The study highlights that optimized planning and the resulting reduction in idle times and insufficient staffing in the shifts lead to a noticeable increase in efficiency.

A WFM system such as opcycWFM takes individual employee preferences, legal requirements and operational requirements into account when planning personnel. This not only increases planning accuracy, but also promotes employee satisfaction, who feel supported by clearer structures and better planning of their working hours.

With opcycWFM, companies not only optimize their personnel costs, but also sustainably improve the well-being of their employees. Through demand-oriented planning and flexibility, companies create a working environment that promotes engagement and efficiency in equal measure. Experience opcycWFM in our on-demand online product demo and learn more about how our WFM suite can turn your challenges into opportunities.

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