Promoting Self-Care to Your Nonprofit Staff: 3 Strategies
Picture this: your nonprofit has been gaining steam—you’ve just hosted a successful peer-to-peer fundraising event and have more funds now than ever. But for some reason, your staff members seem to be losing steam. After all the hard work they’ve put into your event, they suddenly seem less productive, more tired, and more stressed. What’s going on?
According to the American Psychological Association, 60% of workers reported negative mental and physical impacts due to work-related stress. Because your staff members work so hard to fulfill your nonprofit’s mission, they’re more at risk of developing work burnout. To counteract burnout and the behavior that comes with it, promote self-care to your staff members.
A focus on self-care will require operational changes to your nonprofit that may feel time-consuming. However, in the long run, they will provide plenty of benefits to your staff and your organization as a whole. In this guide, we’ll go over the top strategies for promoting self-care to your staff members and the changes you can make to prioritize their well-being. Let’s dive in!
1. Align core values with self-care.
Prioritizing self-care starts with improving and updating your nonprofit’s core foundational values. Without aligning your core values with employee self-care, staff members may feel guilty or fear retaliation for making choices focused on their well-being.
A few core values that align strongly with self-care include:
Empathy. To promote self-care to staff members, you’ll need to include empathy as one of your core values. You’ll focus on understanding the feelings and challenges of individuals both within and outside your organization and providing compassion in all interactions.
Respect. In a similar vein to empathy, including respect as a core value means that you’ll treat everyone fairly and equally. You’ll create a supportive work environment and recognize the contributions of staff members.
Communication. This core value is crucial for organizations of all industries, from massage businesses to animal welfare nonprofits. Since every role will require communication in some capacity, prioritize your employees by centering clear communication and precise expectations in your core values. Plus, your employees will feel empowered to come forward and communicate the challenges they’re experiencing.
Changing your core values is only the first step—you need to embody these values in your day-to-day work as well. Begin with your leadership team. These individuals should be properly debriefed about the changes to your core values, as they’ll need to lead by example and uphold these values in their governance. By getting your leadership team on board, you’ll have an easier time making changes to processes that will make your employees’ lives easier.
One way to do this is to take a page from the for-profit world by investing in software that streamlines your operations. For example, a massage business might choose a massage therapy tool that makes their therapists’ lives easier. Your nonprofit can choose from a variety of solutions that reduce busywork and increase efficiency, such as fundraising software, constituent relationship management (CRM) software, and marketing and communication tools.
2. Emphasize work-life balance.
The next step to prioritizing self-care at your nonprofit is to help your employees achieve a better work-life balance. Aside from encouraging them to create that balance for themselves, support them using the following strategies:
Set realistic goals. Minimize overtime and stress by setting deadlines and priorities realistically, taking into account the amount of time your employees have in the work day. For example, if you have $10,000 left in your budget to host a fundraising event in the next two weeks, it’s probably not realistic to expect your employees to plan an event in such a limited time frame and on the same level as one with a $100,000 budget.
Implement remote work. Although commuting does not count as work time, it still removes time from your staff members’ days. Give them this time back by implementing remote work at your nonprofit and allowing staff members to work from home. Plus, 35% of employees feel more productive when working fully remotely! However, if you’re not ready to go fully remote, you can consider a hybrid work model instead, where some work days are spent in-office and some at home.
Have flexible work hours. For example, instead of requiring employees to work from 9 AM to 5 PM, ask them to work eight hours between 7 AM and 7 PM. That way, staff members have some flexibility in their work schedules to make appointments or simply start work earlier if they’re early birds.
Allow breaks. Encourage employees to take short, 10-15 minute breaks as necessary throughout the work day. Not only will this help them feel less stressed, but 91% of employees say that taking a break helps them focus. That means that more breaks are a win-win—your employees will feel better and be more productive!
Improve indirect compensation. According to Astron Solutions, indirect compensation includes all the ways an organization can give back to an employee without paying them directly. This form of compensation is a great vehicle for promoting self-care to your staff members. For example, you could offer a monthly health stipend which employees can use to purchase gym memberships and health-related items. Or, you could increase the amount of paid time off for team members to allow them to rest and recharge.
Empowering your employees to have a better work-life balance doesn’t just reduce the chance of burnout. It shows staff members that you genuinely care about their well-being and want them to succeed in all aspects of their lives. This increases your employee retention rate, allowing you to keep team members engaged and motivated.
3. Provide resources on stress management.
At times, nonprofit work is unavoidably stressful, even with aligned core values and the best work-life balance. To mitigate the impact of stressful times, provide your staff members with resources on stress management to avoid burnout.
Some of the resources you can provide include:
Books and eBooks
Podcasts
Counseling contact information
Include these resources in a library or database your employees can access at any time so that they can get the help they need. You can also actively help with stress management by providing workshops, training, and support groups. This empowers team members to take active steps toward stress reduction, rather than allowing the stress to build to unmanageable levels.
In addition, encourage employees to participate in stress-reducing activities. For example, if your office is located near a massage clinic, consider forming a partnership. That way, the clinic will receive a steady flow of clients, and you’ll be able to negotiate lower prices for massages for staff members. If cost proves to be a further issue, MassageBook recommends that you make adjustments to your organization’s offered health insurance plan so that it covers medical massages. This is especially pertinent if your staff members are experiencing physical pain or discomfort as a result of their stress.
Self-care is important for everyone, including your nonprofit’s staff members. Consider how you can implement these three strategies at your organization and how they will set your employees up for success. The road to prioritizing self-care is different for every nonprofit, so it’s up to you to evaluate and implement improvements for the well-being of your specific employees.
If you’re interested in connecting, learning, and problem-solving issues such as these with other mission-driven organizations, check out our Collaboration Corner events!