Coping with Stress in the Workplace | How-to Guides for running your business from Business.com

Stress can reduce your workers’ productivity, and your own. An overload of stress can lead to time lost to mental paralysis, health problems, and counter-productive arguments among too-tightly wound staff. A calmer workplace may well accomplish more at a less frenetic pace. You may want to consider ways to:
1. Help your managers and employees cope with stress.
2. Organize your office and workflow so as to avoid unnecessary stress.
3. Build buffers against unavoidable stress by facilitating a collaborative workplace.
4. Encourage good health for your employees.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Educate employees about handling and reducing stress

Help your employees connect with resources that will inform them about techniques to manage stress. There’s lots of information available through online resources, and consultants who specialize in stress management are available for training sessions and staff coaching.

I recommend: Checklists of stress warning signs and stress-prevention strategies are provided in the Workplace Safety Toolkit from the Nonprofit Risk Management Center. Stress management and time management training programs are available from WorkLifeBalance.com. You can also hire stress management consultants from StressStop.com, Stress Management Consultants, or the Stress Education Center.

Communicate expectations and assignments clearly

A major factor in reducing stress is ensuring that your employees know what they’re expected to do and which tasks are most important. Uncertainty about responsibilities or desired outcomes will heighten stress and lower employees’ effectiveness. Comprehensive job descriptions can help. Setting priority lists for assignments, so that everyone knows which jobs rank highest, can also reduce the pressure of feeling pulled in multiple directions.

I recommend: CareerInfoNet offers a robust wizard that helps you craft a job description that sets out skills, knowledge, tasks, work activities and work context. A simple, customizable job description template is available at Inc.com. AdaptivePath offers a worksheet for setting project priorities.

Practice effective time and project management

After setting priorities, the next step in reducing workplace stress is to ensure that staff has time scheduled to accomplish their tasks! When there’s more to do than can be done in the time allotted, or when employees spend too much time on smaller pieces of the puzzle and therefore work inefficiently, the result is unnecessary stress. This applies on both the individual level (time management) and the work group level (project management).

I recommend: Time management applications that help organize time and tasks through calendars, to-do lists, and sometimes group scheduling is available in Microsoft’s Outlook and Apple’s iCal. Multi-platform time management software such as Remember the Milk, Backpack, and TiddlyWiki has advantages for workers who are often on the road or work remotely; they can be accessed from computers, smart phones, and other mobile devices. Project management tools are available from ProjectManagement.com and from Businessballs Space.

Build a work atmosphere and corporate culture that does not add stress

Stress can be catching! In order to lower stress among your workforce, look at your business’ physical and mental space. Is your office too noisy? Do your workers have the right tools and technology to get their jobs done? Examine your corporate culture as well as the physical space. An environment in which collaboration is encouraged, good work is praised, and employees communicate professionally with each other is much less stress-inducing than an environment in which workers feel unsupported, unheard, or not valued.

I recommend: The Meridian Group, company culture consultants, offer tools and advice on company culture. Emerge International can also help transform your existing corporate culture. Transforming your physical space can be approached through office-planning tools provided by Steelcase, an office furniture company. Helpguide.org provides relevant tips for employers on workplace stress reduction. Build collaborative and conflict-resolution skills among your employees through teamwork.

Support and model healthy, stress-reducing behavior

You can reduce stress in the workplace, but eliminating it is not an achievable goal. Healthy, active workers have a greater store of resources to draw on in dealing with stress. An employee who has skipped lunch, has had insufficient sleep, or is in poor health generally is less able to handle everyday stress. Encourage your employees to use their vacation time or personal leave and set the example by using your own. Make healthy food available at the office, and see that working through lunch is not an unspoken expectation in your workplace. Encourage gym memberships, walking-at-lunch clubs, and amateur sports participation through unofficial teams or corporate leagues.

I recommend: Corporate programs that offer discounted memberships to your employees are available from national chains such as Gold’s Gym and Bally’s. Vending machine operators who supply healthy foods can be located at The Vending Yellow Pages and Vending Connection. Encourage group activities such as softball or bowling.

Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

Unrealistic expectations can overload employees. Keep from adding stress through 360° communications – communicate assignments and expectations downward, but also leave communications open for feedback, new information, and requests upwards.
If you have employees who are perfectionists or overly optimistic about how much they can get done, help them approach projects in smaller chunks and schedule accurately by building in time for unforeseen complications. Leaving room for Murphy’s Law to take effect will reduce stress when it does.

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