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In the workplace, it is not uncommon for employees to feel stressed at work. There are many reasons that could contribute to staff feeling more stressed with high workloads, poor management, unrealistic expectations or even financial concerns often cited as top contributors.
Research has pointed towards the big impact that unmanaged workplace stress is having on organisations. For example, IOSH Magazine reported on statistics from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) which found that more than half of Britain’s working days lost in 2019/20 were due to mental ill-health. Additionally, the research found that the rate of self-reported work-related stress, depression or anxiety was 828,000 workers in 2019 – accounting for a whopping 17.9million working days lost.
HR tips for supporting employee stress at work
For individuals, stress can have a hugely negative impact on their health and, for businesses, this could result in a huge number of working days lost. As such, and with this month marking Stress Awareness Month, it is important for employers and HR to think about how they can help to reduce stress for employees at work. Below, HR Grapevine has collated four top tips.
Respect your employee’s personal time
As a boss or an employer, it is important to respect employees’ personal time – whether this is at lunch, after work or if they are taking annual leave. Shockingly, Wrike’s Stress and Productivity Survey found that 67% of survey respondents said that their average daily stress levels ranged from moderately to unsustainably high. What’s more, the same respondents are 84% more likely to say that receiving an email or text from leaders out of working hours has an impact on their stress level, compared with those who experience less stress day to day.
Therefore one tip which was identified in a Wrike article was to essentially respect employees’ personal time and hold off from messaging them about work-related things until they are back at work. The blog post acknowledged that if employers need to get an important note out of their brain, note it down on paper or save it down in a draft message until the employee returns.
Have support and initiatives in place
If an employee is feel stressed out at work, it is crucial that support is signposted so that they can access it as and when needed. For example, a Mind blog post explained that some organisations may have Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP) that could offer advice and counselling.
Others may have different internal support such as buddy systems or mentoring which could also be useful to signpost to staff who may be struggling.
Reduce the number of meetings
Another potential cause of stress is having lots of meetings to attend, leaving some workers feeling that they don’t have as much time to tackle their workloads. For example, Kornferry data – cited by Better Meetings – found that more than a third (34%) said that they waste between one and two hours per week on unproductive calls or meetings, and the same amount said that they waste between two and five hours.
As such, thinking about whether you can trim down some of these meetings, and shorten those that are essential to have could help with this. The article even pointed towards the fact that some companies have gone one step further and have introduced no-meeting days to give staff proper time to do focused and productive work.
One example of this, previously reported on by HR Grapevine was at Uber. Last year, the firm reportedly introduced some ‘meeting-free Mondays’ to give employees a break from back-to-back calls.
Encourage exercise
A final tip, as shared by SHRM, explained that encouraging employees to do exercise daily can be good. In fact, a Mind article pointed towards various studies which have indicated that doing physical activity can help to improve mental health. For example, it said that exercise can help to manage stress and anxiety because doing something physical releases cortisol which helps with stress management.
