Comment by malux85

Yes, and it’s now up to us as managers to engineer that ebb and flow as part of the process. Don’t assign too much work all the time. Make sure that the employees feel excited and rewarded for their hard work (don’t just dump another pile on their desk). Make sure their work is diverse enough so they are not stuck doing the same slog all the time. Make sure the employee sees the big picture of the company - this is how your work is contributing to our mission (the janitor at nasa isn’t sweeping the floor, he’s helping put a man on the moon). When boring work must be done tell them you know it’s boring but all of us have to shovel gravel sometimes, it’s just part of life, but there’s a bit of fun on the other side of it. Be interested in the employees - what are their personal goals over the next 12 months? Learn their dogs name, learn their hobbies, be interested in them as a human and then TRY HELP THEM get to their personal goals. If they want to get fit then block out an hour gym time and send them off to it. Encourage them to bring you new ideas, support them to try out the new ideas - if it doesn’t work out then “hey no problem” but if it does work out tell everyone in the company very publicly and make a lot of noise about it. Don’t criticise them in public, take them aside and help them be better. And lastly, is someone isn’t working out, or is causing cultural problems - get rid of them, it’s harming more than you think. Don’t micromanage - assign the work, support them and then get the hell out of the way.

Good managers will do all of this simultaneously.

Bad managers just try to cram as much work in as possible. Because they are so poor at evaluating the quality of what their employees are doing, the only thing they understand is maximise throughput at the expense of all else. If your manager is like this, leave asap