Provide Onsite Or Distance Counseling
Many companies have also begun providing counseling as a way for employees to help deal with stress in a recent study, almost half of workers felt they needed help in learning how to handle the stresses of their jobs. This strategyin or out of the office, in group settings or individuallycan help employees prepare for what stress will come their way.
Employees Need Support In A Team Atmosphere To Better Manage Stress
People who have a support network are much more secure in their ability to cope with stress. This support is especially important at work. Stress is magnified if employees have to deal with problems without support of any kind.
Do This: Arrange for small group interactions where employees can get to know each other on an individual level. This is most effective when combined with training and team building activities. Constructive interaction helps cultivate meaningful relationships.
You can also provide opportunities for social interaction outside of work. Meeting in a less official manner may give people a chance to laugh together. Humor is a great way to cope with stress. A good laugh can do wonders for your employees.
Your company may even want to create a team approach to some assignments which can help prevent isolation. When people know they are part of a team, it is easier for them to function at work.
How Can You Help Yourself
Stress is a natural reaction to many situations in life, such as work, family, relationships and money problems.
We mentioned earlier on that a moderate amount of stress can help us perform better in challenging situations,34 but too much or prolonged stress can lead to physical problems. This can include lower immunity levels,35 digestive and intestinal difficulties, e.g. irritable bowel syndrome ,36 or mental health problems such as depression.37 It is therefore important that we manage our stress and keep it at a healthy level to prevent long-term damage to our bodies and minds.
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Provide A Chill Out Space In The Office
Sometimes people need 15 minutes to relax, re-group and disengage from technology and general work related interactions. Providing a quiet room, or a chill out space where employees can spend 15 minutes with their thoughts can dramatically help reduce workplace stress and burnout. This is one area small employers forget to forget to factor in to their office space when they grow. After taking a short break free from distractions, people often feel refreshed and re-energised to tackle the rest of the day. If you can, provide comfortable seating and paint the walls a neutral colour a pleasant environment is good for boosting happiness.
Poor Relationships At Work
Poor workplace relationships can leave employees feeling isolated.
Conflict with co-workers can leave employees feeling anxious and avoidant about coming to work.
A non-inclusive cliquey environment can also be a source of stress. Employees not included in social groups at work will weaken employee relations. This prevents team members from building a sense of belonging and feeling valued.
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Employee Assignments Should Challenge Their Abilities Without Overwhelming Them
Employees need to be challenged but not overloaded. Challenge helps employees develop skills, makes work interesting, and helps maintain motivation.
But it is just not possible for people to perform well for extended periods of time when workloads are to heavy. Working this way leads to irritability, exhaustion, reduced productivity and ultimately, illness, and injury.
Do This: Give employees the option of calling a time out when they feel overwhelmed. This will help establish a norm around working smarter, not harder. Employees can easily identify unproductive activities when asked. Asking them on a periodic basis will help you keep your operations streamlined.
Learn To Accept What Is In Your Control And What Isnt
Some things are out of your control.
Find ways to make the things that are out of your control more bearable. If where you work is too noisy, maybe noise cancelling headphones would help.
For example, getting stressed about the traffic on the way to work is completely unhelpful. You canât control the traffic. The best you can do is leave early enough so you have plenty of time to get to work. If leaving late is adding stress because the traffic makes you late for work leaving you apologizing or making excuses for why youâre late, youâre needlessly adding to your stress. You canât control the traffic, but you can control when you leave home.
Make changes to what you can control. The rest is not worth getting upset about.
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Conflict Resolution Skills For Healthy Relationships
Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.
Conflict is a predictable part of virtually all relationships. It can also be a significant source of stress. Therefore, with most conflicts, its important to find a resolution. This seems like a statement of the obvious, but many people suppress their anger or just go along to get along.’ Some think that by addressing a conflict, they are creating one, and simply keep quiet when upset. Unfortunately, this isnt a healthy long-term strategy.
Unresolved conflict can lead to resentment and additional unresolved conflict in the relationship. Even more important, ongoing conflict can actually have a negative impact on your health and longevity.
Unfortunately, resolving conflict can be tricky as well. Handled improperly, attempts at conflict resolution can actually make the conflict worse. For example, researcher John Gottman and his colleagues studied the way couples fight, and can actually predict which couples will go on to divorce by observing their conflict resolution skillsor lack thereof.
For those who werent born into a family where perfect conflict resolution skills were modeled on a daily basis , here are some guidelines to make conflict resolution more simple and less stressful.
Allow For Flexible Hours And Remote Working
You hired your employees because you have confidence in their ability to do their jobs well and in a timely mannerso let them prove it. Your office shouldnt feel like a cell, but rather a place that facilitates getting a job done. Let your employees know that their job is defined by the quality and timeliness of their work, not when they punch the clock.
Allow your employees to work remotely, and give flexibility for start and end times. This freedom is great for office morale, and the policy shows employees that you trust them enough not to babysit.
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Master Your Own Emotions
Become themaster of your mental state. Take the time to identify your own bad habits, negative attitudes and other harmful behaviors that have become second nature you may find that you are the author of much of your own stress. You must recognize and learn from those destructive thoughts, without allowing them to put you in a state of anxiety. Thats how you trulybeat work-related stress.
Know Your Paid And Unpaid Leave Policies
Speaking of which, knowing family leave policies in the country and your state are an important piece of offering employee support.
Whether or not your company decides to offer unlimited vacations, you will have to consider the varied needs and circumstances of your team. For many people, workplace stress actually centers around the difficulty of fitting life events around work such as pregnancy, family death and illness, and childcare.
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Tip : Connect To Others
There is nothing more calming than spending quality time with another human being who makes you feel safe and understood. In fact, face-to-face interaction triggers a cascade of hormones that counteracts the bodys defensive fight-or-flight response. Its natures natural stress reliever . So make it a point to connect regularlyand in personwith family and friends.
Keep in mind that the people you talk to dont have to be able to fix your stress. They simply need to be good listeners. And try not to let worries about looking weak or being a burden keep you from opening up. The people who care about you will be flattered by your trust. It will only strengthen your bond.
Of course, its not always realistic to have a pal close by to lean on when you feel overwhelmed by stress, but by building and maintaining a network of close friends you can improve your resiliency to lifes stressors.
Tips for building relationships
Check Out 15 Techniques To Fight Against Stress At Work
Stress is often referred to as the 21st-century sickness. We all know this feeling of anxiety, sometimes anxiety, which occurs especially in the professional setting. But what are we really doing to fight it? Are there methods to overcome it? We have 15 complementary techniques that will help you a lot to fight against stress at work.
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How To Overcome Work Anxiety
Work anxiety is never just work anxiety. It often bleeds into your home and personal life, and if it continues without management for too long, you may also develop anxiety that often lasts long after you leave your job.
While all of these characteristics might not apply to you, the information should still provide you with tips of how to properly manage your anxiety at work. For the purpose of this article, we will make a few assumptions, which include the following:
- You are currently at a job you cannot leave, because you have not obtained a new job or you need to stay for family reasons.
- You are employed for a company that utilizes cubicles or offices. Despite not fitting the mold exactly, retail, restaurant, and work-from-home jobs should still relate and be relevant based on the suggestions below but how you integrate them may change.
- You are good at your career. Having high career aspirations is still a very important aspect of overcoming anxiety. If you fail to even try to succeed at work, it can impact your anxiety negatively.
- You are not anxious about finances this kind of work anxiety is related to a different kind of anxiety in general. Financial anxiety can be overcome by changing priorities and properly budgeting. We understand that some of you are not paid what you are worth, which can incite anxiety. However, for the sake of this article, we will assume your finances are stable or not a cause of anxiousness.
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How To Cope With Stress At Work
You don’t need to cope with stress at work alone. Here are some general ideas you can try to help you manage:
- Understand more about stress. Recognising the signs of stress and learning about the causes of stress is good place to start.
- Figure out what you find stressful and helpful. You could make a Wellness Action Plan to map out what causes you stress and what keeps you well. Once you know what’s best, talk to your employer. They may be able to make some changes to help you.
- Learn different coping techniques. Everyone deals with stress differently, so take time to find methods that work for you. Use them as soon as you start to feel pressure building. Check out the guides from the Stress Management Society for ideas.
- Try practising mindfulness. This practice is about focusing on the here and now. It might help you to find calmness and clarity to respond to stressful situations. See our pages on mindfulness to learn more.
- Look after your physical health. Eat well and try a gentle activity like going for a walk or doing a chair-based exercise. Our pages on physical activity and food and mood have more details on how this can help your mental health.
“I try to keep each task short and clear, take breaks when getting tired and be polite, honest and empathic with the people I work with.”
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Ask For Support At Work
If you find it challenging to stop worrying about work, even while implementing the strategies above, you might be able to seek support at work to mitigate the issues you’re experiencing stress over. Consider approaching your supervisor and asking for the accommodations you need. For example, if you’re worried about the amount of tasks you have to complete, you can suggest that your supervisor re-delegate a few tasks.
Run An Errand Away From Your Desk
If you have an errand that involves leaving your usual work space, now may be the time to do it. Taking a letter to the Post Office, or running a USB stick to another department, can provide a welcome distraction and a change of scenery for a few minutes. Plus, youll have ticked another item off your to-do list!
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Ask For Help Where You Need It At Work
The workplace of the 21st century is becoming increasingly competitive and causing workplace stress. It’s more important than ever to have a mentor or coach to guide you through your career, especially if you are feeling unsure of your next steps.
The lines between what constitutes a professional’s work content are becoming blurred. With an ever-evolving job market, new roles are being developed to meet the needs of the modern workforce–even if it means asking for help where you need it at work.
First, you need to identify what part of your work needs help and then identify where this help can be found. For example, if you need a new idea for a blog post or video or something, then you could find a writer to help with that specific task. If you’re struggling with crafting the perfect email message, then taking help from a writer at your workplace might be in your best interest.
Disconnect On The Weekends
Being constantly connected to your work through email and text messages can make it challenging for you to reduce your stress levels. Try to disconnect from your work by turning off notifications or avoiding using your devices all together. Disconnecting can allow you to be more present in your personal time and preserve your mental wellbeing.
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Make Time For Workplace Wellness
Your workplace should support your sustained wellbeing throughout the day. Say it again so you dont forget. Hard work needs balance to be sustainable. Now, not everyone is lucky enough to have a dedicated home office, but there are plenty of small things you can do to make your work from home experience more enjoyable and healthier. Some excellent items to facilitate this are:
- Greenery in your scenery.
- In addition to improving the air quality, adding indoor plants to your desktop can have a soothing effect and make your space feel calmer.
Coping With Stress At Work
Working hard should not be confused with overworking at the expense of relationships and physical health.
Coping with stress at work.
Everyone who has ever held a job has, at some point, felt the pressure of work-related stress. Any job can have stressful elements, even if you love what you do. In the short-term, you may experience pressure to meet a deadline or to fulfill a challenging obligation. But when work stress becomes chronic, it can be overwhelmingand harmful to both physical and emotional health.
Unfortunately, such long-term stress is all too common. In fact, has consistently found that work is cited as a significant source of stress by a majority of Americans. You cant always avoid the tensions that occur on the job. Yet you can take steps to manage work-related stress.
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Improve Employee Financial Security
According to our research, financial issues can cause an overwhelming amount of stress in employees personal lives. Because the paychecks you write are likely the primary source of income for your employees, financial issues at home can cause stress and disengagement at work.
- 36% of employees feel financially secure
- 19% of employees believe they are saving enough for retirement.
Although organizations and leadership should be careful about inserting themselves into employees financial decisions unsolicited, there are things you can do to help if called upon.
Have Transparent and Empathetic Financial Conversations
Financial conversations can be very uncomfortable for both parties involved. In every compensation conversation, you’ll want to come prepared. No matter the type of progression, referencing documentation will keep your discussion transparent and fair. Be honest about each employees compensation potential and how their current pay compares to the market.
While you can’t always resolve tricky money matters, being understanding of the financial burdens your employees might be facing and providing guidance will go a long way.
Give Spot Bonuses for Exceptional Performance
Give Access to Resources
