CRM: Your stress-monitoring tool

By Lukas Szczurowski

I’ve recently been thinking a lot about whether I will ever be able to achieve a perfect balance between my personal and professional life. As the CEO of my own company, I have quickly come to know that the more work I put in, the more benefit I receive in return. However, the price I have had to pay as a result of being a “workaholic” is that of not spending enough time with my family and, experiencing a persistent surge of stress. Putting my own experience aside, my curiosity resides in what kind of impact this type of lifestyle has on my employees.

Nowadays, there seems to be this unruly expectation for all employees to work around the clock. Employees’ efforts are no longer judged solely within the office, but now outside the office and then some. As the employer, you may believe that your employee’s extra efforts are necessary in order to be considered an exceptional worker, however, you are failing to recognize that this added pressure and work overload has a significant impact on the employee’s well-being.

I am guilty of this and yet I am still puzzled about why employers think that this is the most efficient method to get the most mileage out of an employee and furthermore distinguish between the good and the bad. As a result of all the extra hours of work, the lack of sleep and the constant demand to stay ahead of the game, employees are tiring out and absenteeism is on the rise. Those once “good” employees start to decrease in productivity and your company is at a major loss. Are we setting ourselves up for failure by working people until they burn out? More importantly, is there a way to gauge the level of stress an employee is experiencing and intervene before it is too late?

I suggest using CRM. More specifically, using the KPIs and reporting functions of a CRM system. In order to better understand where your employees stand in terms of their productivity and stress levels, you, the employer, should use the KPI function as a tool for goal setting. These goals should be broken down into incremental steps so to provide a path and direction for your employees. From there, you can generate weekly, bi-weekly or monthly reports to better determine whether they are doing a good or a bad job and thus monitor when stress levels might be on the rise. As a result, your employees are provided with a clear direction for their task goals and feel less of a need to bring their work home and additionally, you are better able to keep track of your employees’ progress and intervene when it is the most vital.

Do you think this is an effective method of keeping our finger on our employees’ pulse? Do you have any other suggestions?

I want to know your thoughts…

About the Author
Lukas Szczurowski is the CEO of Luxor CRM, a privately-held Canadian CRM vendor headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. He began Luxor CRM in 2000 and has since accumulated a clientele across North America providing small to medium-sized businesses with a complete, online CRM solution.

Tags: online crm, saas crm, web-based crm, Luxor CRM, luxorcrm, canadian crm