First published: May 12th, 2022
No job is inherently stressful.
Stress is like friction. It’s a wedge between an individual and their job. How do you fix friction? You start by finding out what’s causing it.
For starters, it’s a stressful time to be alive. We’ve been in a global pandemic for two years. There’s a war in Ukraine. Inflation is at its highest rate since 1992. When you live in a society of stress, personal issues are just adding to the already overflowing pile.
You can help reduce the pile when you take that first step. Sit down with your stressed employee and ask the question: are they stressed at work, at home, or both? Locate the source and you’ll find the problem.
Sometimes, staff might try to cover up stress or pass it off as nothing. This never ends well. If you don’t address stress, it’ll manifest itself in other ways. You’ll feel it build tension within a team, simmering beneath the surface until it reaches boiling point.
That’s when the arguments happen. The high staff turnover. The rocketing absences and plummeting performances.
Workplace stress is a killer of success.
Don’t brush it under the carpet. If stress is eclipsing your workplace, think about the message you want to send to staff. Serve your values from the top and make sure they don’t get the leftovers. Your proof is in the pudding with a watertight policy. It’ll minimise the risk of grievances and staff resignations down the line.
Next thing to consider is a work-related stress risk assessment of your workplace – which you can review and update regularly. Look out for the weeds of stress and pull them out where you can.
With Peninsula as your pesticide, you don’t have to do this alone.
Preventative measures might not be enough to support staff who are currently struggling. In which case, Peninsula’s EAP service offers staff unlimited 24/7 supportive advice, face-to-face counselling, and online tools to reduce mental health-related absences by as much as 45%.
If you do what you can to minimise workplace stress, no one can accuse you of neglecting your duty of care. Call an EAP expert on 0800 917 0771 to protect staff wellbeing today.
