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Well-being at work is still too often treated as a secondary issue: an HR concern, a matter of individual comfort, or a "bonus" topic. This view is incomplete.
In a team, well-being is a direct indicator of working conditions: the actual workload, pace, clarity of decisions, and quality of management. When it deteriorates, it is not primarily a problem of motivation. It is a sign that the organization of work is becoming energy-intensive.
The goal is therefore not to "make people happy." The goal is to create sustainable conditions: a team that moves forward without burning out, and that can keep going over the long term without performance coming at the cost of chronic fatigue. Here are five simple, concrete, and actionable management tips.
Well-being cannot be managed intuitively. It must be managed as an operational indicator. A team can continue to deliver and remain engaged while becoming increasingly fragile. The first signs are not clear warnings, but small shifts in the way people work.
When energy levels drop, the trap for managers is to see this as an accumulation of individual weaknesses. More often than not, it is not a question of willpower or resilience: it is the organization that becomes unstable and requires more energy.
Certain signals should be interpreted as organizational warnings, because they indicate that work is beginning to cost more energy.
For example, we observe:
A concrete example
A team continues to deliver on time, but the manager observes over the course of a month: more rework, more heated exchanges in meetings, and two people who systematically take on "extra" tasks to avoid bottlenecks. Nothing alarming when taken in isolation, but together, these signs point to an organization that is starting to cost too much energy.
When several people say they are tired, flat or overwhelmed, the reflex is often to respond solely with individual adjustments: a one-to-one meeting, recovery advice, or telling them to "take it easy."
It's useful, but it's not enough. If these signals recur in several people, it's no longer an individual issue: it's a collective signal about how work is organized.
In practice, the causes are often very concrete:
A concrete example
At the weekly meeting, several team members say they are "underwater," without being able to explain exactly why. By digging deeper together, they identify that last-minute emergencies related to another team are consuming most of their energy. The problem is not the overall workload, but poorly managed dependency.
The goal is not to make a comprehensive diagnosis. The goal is to identify irritants and then act quickly. A simple ritual is all it takes:
The key is to move beyond general debate and choose a simple, testable action to take the following week.
A concrete example
During a 10-minute meeting, the team identifies Slack interruptions as the main source of fatigue. The manager decides to group urgent matters into a dedicated slot twice a day. A week later, the team notices improved concentration and less tension, without any change in objectives.
Overload does not only come from the amount of work. It often comes from having to constantly make decisions. When priorities are unclear, everyone spends their time sorting out what is urgent, important, or secondary. This uncertainty quickly becomes tiring: it leads to rework, hesitation, excessive validation, and a constant feeling of never doing things "right."
When everything is presented as a priority:
The causes are often simple:
A concrete example
A team is working simultaneously on five projects. None of them has a clear priority. Team members spend their time making decisions on their own, seeking approval, and juggling conflicting requests. Deadlines are pushed back and fatigue sets in, while the total workload remains stable.
Clarifying priorities is not a motivational phrase. It is a managerial decision.
A simple practice is to explicitly ask:
This gesture immediately reduces uncertainty. It protects the team because it puts the decision-making back where it belongs: with the manager.
A concrete example
Faced with persistent overload, a manager decides to halt a secondary project for six weeks. He clearly announces this in a team meeting and takes responsibility for mediating with stakeholders. The team refocuses on two key priorities and quickly regains fluidity in execution.
A team can handle an intense sprint. What damages well-being is not the occasional effort, but the repeated urgency. When this becomes the norm, recovery disappears and performance weakens. The trap is that it creeps up quietly: as long as the team "holds up," we keep going. Until the day when quality declines, tensions rise, or someone finally cracks.
An unbalanced rhythm is rarely noticeable in schedules. It can be detected over time, through simple signals:
A high-performing team handles urgent deliveries for several months. Deadlines are met, but errors are increasing and sick leave is on the rise. The problem is not competence or commitment, but a pace that has become unsustainable.
Regulating the pace does not mean lowering your goals. It means taking action on the actual work:
The idea: to return to a way of working where the team delivers to high standards without becoming overworked.
Concrete example
A manager notices that his team is wasting too much time in meetings and intermediate approvals. He eliminates one non-essential approval and blocks out two half-days per week without meetings. The pace stabilizes, and the quality of deliverables improves.
To make it easier to take action, this regulation can be supported by simple tools (rapid diagnosis, checklist of levers, team rituals), such as our "Cultivating the Right Rhythm" kit, designed to help managers preserve collective energy while maintaining performance.
Stress doesn't just come from workload. It also comes from uncertainty. When the rules of the game are unclear, energy is wasted, tensions rise, and everyone ends up protecting themselves.
Securing the working environment does not mean making it rigid. It means establishing stable benchmarks so that everyone knows what they can decide, how to move forward, and what is expected of them.
A blurred frame generates almost mechanically:
When roles are unclear, work slows down and tensions arise.
A concrete example
Two employees work in the same area without a clear division of responsibilities. Decisions are slowed down, each checks what the other is doing, and tensions arise. The manager clarifies the roles: one manages, the other executes, with a defined point of validation. The conflict quickly disappears.
A poorly explained decision often creates more uncertainty than the decision itself. What tires teams is not change. It is uncertainty.
A simple guideline is to specify:
A concrete example
A manager announces an organizational change without specifying the impacts. The team becomes concerned and asks a lot of questions. The next time, he explains what is changing, what is not changing, and when. The team regains a clear and stable framework.
Recognition is not a "motivation bonus." It is a lever for stability: it helps the team to persevere over time, especially when the intensity increases. Without recognition, effort becomes invisible, a feeling of "giving without receiving anything in return" sets in, and commitment often erodes silently.
What must be recognized as a priority:
It is easy to value visible results. However, what keeps a team together is often the less spectacular work: sustained effort, cooperation, anticipation, quality of execution, and dealing with irritants.
A simple, regular practice that works
Recognition is most effective when it is frequent and factual. A short format is sufficient:
A concrete example:
Every weekend, a manager sends two short messages to highlight a specific contribution (smooth coordination, anticipation, emergency management). The result: the team feels seen, and commitment remains stable, even during busy periods.
Well-being at work is neither a luxury nor a secondary issue. It is a key management tool that comes into play in the organization of actual work. It is based on five concrete actions:
When these actions become reflexes, teams gain stability, risks decrease, and performance becomes sustainable, without coming at the cost of chronic fatigue.
Well-being at work is still too often treated as a secondary issue: an HR concern, a matter of individual comfort, or a "bonus" topic. This view is incomplete.
In a team, well-being is a direct indicator of working conditions: the actual workload, pace, clarity of decisions, and quality of management. When it deteriorates, it is not primarily a problem of motivation. It is a sign that the organization of work is becoming energy-intensive.
The goal is therefore not to "make people happy." The goal is to create sustainable conditions: a team that moves forward without burning out, and that can keep going over the long term without performance coming at the cost of chronic fatigue. Here are five simple, concrete, and actionable management tips.
Well-being cannot be managed intuitively. It must be managed as an operational indicator. A team can continue to deliver and remain engaged while becoming increasingly fragile. The first signs are not clear warnings, but small shifts in the way people work.
When energy levels drop, the trap for managers is to see this as an accumulation of individual weaknesses. More often than not, it is not a question of willpower or resilience: it is the organization that becomes unstable and requires more energy.
Certain signals should be interpreted as organizational warnings, because they indicate that work is beginning to cost more energy.
For example, we observe:
A concrete example
A team continues to deliver on time, but the manager observes over the course of a month: more rework, more heated exchanges in meetings, and two people who systematically take on "extra" tasks to avoid bottlenecks. Nothing alarming when taken in isolation, but together, these signs point to an organization that is starting to cost too much energy.
When several people say they are tired, flat or overwhelmed, the reflex is often to respond solely with individual adjustments: a one-to-one meeting, recovery advice, or telling them to "take it easy."
It's useful, but it's not enough. If these signals recur in several people, it's no longer an individual issue: it's a collective signal about how work is organized.
In practice, the causes are often very concrete:
A concrete example
At the weekly meeting, several team members say they are "underwater," without being able to explain exactly why. By digging deeper together, they identify that last-minute emergencies related to another team are consuming most of their energy. The problem is not the overall workload, but poorly managed dependency.
The goal is not to make a comprehensive diagnosis. The goal is to identify irritants and then act quickly. A simple ritual is all it takes:
The key is to move beyond general debate and choose a simple, testable action to take the following week.
A concrete example
During a 10-minute meeting, the team identifies Slack interruptions as the main source of fatigue. The manager decides to group urgent matters into a dedicated slot twice a day. A week later, the team notices improved concentration and less tension, without any change in objectives.
Overload does not only come from the amount of work. It often comes from having to constantly make decisions. When priorities are unclear, everyone spends their time sorting out what is urgent, important, or secondary. This uncertainty quickly becomes tiring: it leads to rework, hesitation, excessive validation, and a constant feeling of never doing things "right."
When everything is presented as a priority:
The causes are often simple:
A concrete example
A team is working simultaneously on five projects. None of them has a clear priority. Team members spend their time making decisions on their own, seeking approval, and juggling conflicting requests. Deadlines are pushed back and fatigue sets in, while the total workload remains stable.
Clarifying priorities is not a motivational phrase. It is a managerial decision.
A simple practice is to explicitly ask:
This gesture immediately reduces uncertainty. It protects the team because it puts the decision-making back where it belongs: with the manager.
A concrete example
Faced with persistent overload, a manager decides to halt a secondary project for six weeks. He clearly announces this in a team meeting and takes responsibility for mediating with stakeholders. The team refocuses on two key priorities and quickly regains fluidity in execution.
A team can handle an intense sprint. What damages well-being is not the occasional effort, but the repeated urgency. When this becomes the norm, recovery disappears and performance weakens. The trap is that it creeps up quietly: as long as the team "holds up," we keep going. Until the day when quality declines, tensions rise, or someone finally cracks.
An unbalanced rhythm is rarely noticeable in schedules. It can be detected over time, through simple signals:
A high-performing team handles urgent deliveries for several months. Deadlines are met, but errors are increasing and sick leave is on the rise. The problem is not competence or commitment, but a pace that has become unsustainable.
Regulating the pace does not mean lowering your goals. It means taking action on the actual work:
The idea: to return to a way of working where the team delivers to high standards without becoming overworked.
Concrete example
A manager notices that his team is wasting too much time in meetings and intermediate approvals. He eliminates one non-essential approval and blocks out two half-days per week without meetings. The pace stabilizes, and the quality of deliverables improves.
To make it easier to take action, this regulation can be supported by simple tools (rapid diagnosis, checklist of levers, team rituals), such as our "Cultivating the Right Rhythm" kit, designed to help managers preserve collective energy while maintaining performance.
Stress doesn't just come from workload. It also comes from uncertainty. When the rules of the game are unclear, energy is wasted, tensions rise, and everyone ends up protecting themselves.
Securing the working environment does not mean making it rigid. It means establishing stable benchmarks so that everyone knows what they can decide, how to move forward, and what is expected of them.
A blurred frame generates almost mechanically:
When roles are unclear, work slows down and tensions arise.
A concrete example
Two employees work in the same area without a clear division of responsibilities. Decisions are slowed down, each checks what the other is doing, and tensions arise. The manager clarifies the roles: one manages, the other executes, with a defined point of validation. The conflict quickly disappears.
A poorly explained decision often creates more uncertainty than the decision itself. What tires teams is not change. It is uncertainty.
A simple guideline is to specify:
A concrete example
A manager announces an organizational change without specifying the impacts. The team becomes concerned and asks a lot of questions. The next time, he explains what is changing, what is not changing, and when. The team regains a clear and stable framework.
Recognition is not a "motivation bonus." It is a lever for stability: it helps the team to persevere over time, especially when the intensity increases. Without recognition, effort becomes invisible, a feeling of "giving without receiving anything in return" sets in, and commitment often erodes silently.
What must be recognized as a priority:
It is easy to value visible results. However, what keeps a team together is often the less spectacular work: sustained effort, cooperation, anticipation, quality of execution, and dealing with irritants.
A simple, regular practice that works
Recognition is most effective when it is frequent and factual. A short format is sufficient:
A concrete example:
Every weekend, a manager sends two short messages to highlight a specific contribution (smooth coordination, anticipation, emergency management). The result: the team feels seen, and commitment remains stable, even during busy periods.
Well-being at work is neither a luxury nor a secondary issue. It is a key management tool that comes into play in the organization of actual work. It is based on five concrete actions:
When these actions become reflexes, teams gain stability, risks decrease, and performance becomes sustainable, without coming at the cost of chronic fatigue.
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