When managers prioritize well-being, it signals that the organization values employees as people. Raz Dar, CEO of Elvee, explains how to build better workplaces through smarter management.
With the lines between work and personal life blurring, it’s not surprising that Severance is Apple TV+’s most-watched show. While the series goes to an extreme, most people fantasize about a simple way to shut off when they leave the office without letting work issues seep into their personal time. The assumed on and off switch between ‘work life’ and ‘personal life’ rarely applies in the era of mobile phones, Slack notifications, and emails that come in all night. It is well documented that many employees are unable to switch off even after hours. However, the main issue that workers struggle with is not that phone call from their boss at 8 pm; it’s pondering their treatment during office hours. Stress at work, collegial issues, not being heard, and mismanagement all impact employee mental and physical well-being. A better work experience and sympathetic managers not only help retain workers for longer; they also help them thrive.
The Importance of Micro-Moments
Job satisfaction is the second most important influence on employee well-being, and relationships with management are the leading factor for work fulfillment. The manager sets the tone in the team, ensures that things run smoothly, and that employees feel supported at work.
Leaders often underestimate the importance of micro-moments at work. What may feel like a throwaway comment or a minor oversight can be the very thing that keeps an employee up at night. These positive and negative micro-moments accumulate into the overall employee experience. They can be the difference between engaged, thriving employees who stay for the long term, and those who quietly crack, burn out, or leave.
Research backs this up: a study of British contact centers found that happier employees were 13% more productive and worked faster. However many managers remain unaware of the impact of certain issues, or fail to recognize when an employee is silently struggling. Rather than raise concerns, employees often choose to withdraw, operate at lower motivation levels, or ultimately resign.
Building Better Workplaces Through Smarter Management
Spotting disengagement early and understanding what’s driving it is a two-fold challenge. Today, AI-powered management tools can help bridge this gap. By providing real-time visibility, actionable insights, and intelligent heatmaps of employee sentiment, these tools give managers the data they need to address issues before they escalate and to ultimately strengthen motivation, performance, and retention. Some of the most common issues at work include:
- Foster a Supportive Team Dynamic: Competitive or siloed environments can discourage collaboration, limit knowledge-sharing, and make employees feel isolated rather than supported. It is important to create team norms that value collaboration over competition, encourage knowledge-sharing, and celebrate collective wins so employees feel they’re working with each other, not against each other. Internal research at Google found that who is on the team is not as important as to how the team interacts, and put together five tips on fostering more effective team dynamics.
- Realistic workloads: Employees struggle when responsibilities outpace the time and resources available to complete them, leading to stress, burnout, and declining quality of work. Companies must design roles and set expectations so employees can complete their work within standard hours without sacrificing quality or personal time. If workloads increase beyond what is manageable, managers should discuss this with employees and set priorities to focus on the most important items first and postpone less urgent tasks. Using workload management tools can help oversee and manage workloads efficiently, with tools such as Jira even including workload pie charts.
- Speaking Up Without Apprehension: When employees feel apprehensive about voicing concerns or admitting mistakes, it creates hidden risks, stifles innovation, and undermines psychological safety. Changing the environment ensures that employees feel like they have influence over how the job is done. With tools such as CultureAmp, companies can also solicit anonymous and fully transparent feedback through employee engagement surveys to enable open and honest communication channels.
Overall Employee Experience is the Key to Employee Wellness
Employee wellness programs are an excellent recruitment tool to enhance salary and benefits packages. Gym memberships, healthy snacks, and mindfulness apps are a few ways to entice workers and also support their physical and mental health. However, when employees are experiencing difficulties at work, these are merely band-aid solutions. Experiences at work permeate other aspects of life to the point where there is a correlation between how supportive a worker’s colleagues10 are and how much they support their partner at home.
For companies that want to retain their employees and support their well-being, beginning with addressing team and management dynamics is a must. While HR sets the tone for organizational policies, managers are the ones who most directly shape the employee’s daily reality. A supportive leader can be the difference between a workday that drains energy and one that fuels it. When managers prioritize well-being, it signals that the organization values employees as people, not just as output generators.
About the Author
Raz Dar serves as CEO of Elvee, bringing decades of experience in technology leadership, business development, and sales to the role.Before Elvee, he led global sales initiatives for multiple early-stage startups in Israel’s dynamic tech ecosystem. He also held senior positions at AWS, where he was named Israel’s Salesperson of the Year for leading a major cloud migration and successfully partnered with NICE through their complex cloud transition. Earlier in his career, he spent nearly 20 years at Amdocs in roles spanning software development, business development, and sales leadership, including managing a $50M P&L as Senior Account Executive for AT&T. He holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering & Management from Ben-Gurion University.
