Overcoming Occupational Stress
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Last week, we discussed occupational stress and its effects and how it can be quite damaging to the performance a business.
Below are some ways employers and employees can deal with and overcome work-related stress.
What can employers do?
To overcome occupational stress and ensure increased employee wellbeing it is essential for employers to regularly check in with employees. This could include implementing monthly or quarterly happiness surveys to monitor stress levels in the workplace and gain a good understand of how employees are doing.
Tip: Below are some example questions to include in the happiness survey:
How are you dealing with your workload?
Do you enjoy coming to work in the morning?
Is there anything at work that causes you stress?
What can employees do?
Similar to employers, there are numerous ways employees can deal with the effects of occupational stress, including:
Managing work deadlines: To avoid feeling overwhelmed and procrastination, employees should maintain a diligent and reasonable work pace to finish required tasks.
Pushing back: At times individuals dealing with work-related stress tend to take on too much causing even more stress. Therefore, employers must create an open environment where employees feel comfortable to push back on tasks that they do not have the capacity to complete.
Tip: To create such an environment, encourage employees to have open conversations with managers in order to clarify expectations and ask for necessary resources or support as required.
Taking a break: To relax and destress, take regular breaks and step outdoors for at least 10 minutes each day.
Tip: Establish work-life balance boundaries, eg, making rules not to answer work calls outside work hours.
Monitoring and tracking stressors: Increase self-awareness by taking notes to identify situations that create the most stress and your response to the stress. Record information about your thoughts, feelings, and the environment, including the people and circumstances involved.
This will provide an in-depth understanding of how you deal with situations and what to improve in future.
Relaxing: Practice meditation, deep breathing exercises, regular exercise and mindfulness to avoid work-related stress.
Tip: Find what works for you and do it regularly even if it is just for 5 minutes a day.
Asking for support: To improve stress management ability it can be helpful to ask for and accept help from friends, family and co-workers.
It can also be helpful to access resources provided by your employer such as an employee assistance program (EAP).