Satisfied employees through Lean: Lean as a contribution to the prevention of stress and burnout

Always faster, always further, always more: the demands in the working world are constantly increasing. Stress and strain are increasing, as is the number of mental illnesses. It is estimated that more than 3 billion euros in costs are incurred every year just from the associated loss of work. Burnout does not only result from a high workload – think, for example, of artists, scientists or other creative people who sometimes work a lot without feeling stressed.

The factors that contribute to job satisfaction and thus to the prevention of mental illness are relatively well known. You want to use your own skills and develop them further; praise, recognition and a sense of achievement are just as important. The Bertelsmann Foundation has shown how important recognition is: for example, the risk of burnout drops significantly as soon as managers give their employees social support at work. A good working atmosphere and the opportunity to influence one’s own work and the working environment are also important for job satisfaction. The triggers for stress and excessive demands, on the other hand, are constant disruptions and interruptions, a lack of time off and pointless work content.

To what extent can LEAN MANAGEMENT make a difference here? Many years of implementation practice have shown that LEAN not only increases cost-effectiveness and efficiency, but also increases job satisfaction and employee motivation. The triggers are the following basic principles of lean management:

• Create value without waste -Employees are relieved of pointless activities. Only what is needed and makes sense is produced. The result is meaningful work and a sense of achievement.
• Employees are deployed according to their activities and are neither under nor overwhelmed. The lean tool used here is the activity structure analysis (TSA).
• Through stable processes and standardized work environments, queries and disruptions are drastically reduced and employees can concentrate on their tasks. This may even give you the chance to work in flow, an important moment of happiness.
• With Lean Management design and employees optimize their own processes and thereby gain influence and design options Working environment.
• The managers support, coach their employees and  guide them to act independently.
• All improvements take place in the team, the colleagues get insights into the work of their colleagues. This creates a pleasant and cooperative working atmosphere.

As you can see, lean management can actually be a key to employee satisfaction and the prevention of stress and burnout. In fact, not only the company benefits, but also the employees. Nevertheless, many companies find it difficult to implement lean management in the long term and sustainably. This is because lean management always involves effort and requires a certain amount of persuasion. The potential of lean management can only be fully exploited if there is a cultural change and lean is anchored holistically in the company. The problem in many companies today is the lack of continuity as a prerequisite for this cultural change. Frequent changes at top management, reorganizations and mergers and much more make long-term cultural change more difficult. However, it is also undisputed that, in view of the ever-increasing competition  on the one hand and the imminent shortage of personnel on the other hand, lean management is an optimal way to meet these challenges.