Last year, work-related stress cost the economy a massive £6.5bn – clearly, something needs to be done. Whether your employees take days off for stress, or come to work disengaged, tired, unmotivated and too stressed to work, you could see the costs to your business rise if you don’t take action.
According to the Health and Safety Executive, there are six management standards that you should review in your business, in order to reduce the levels of work related stress amongst workers and cover the primary sources of stress in the workplace. These include demands (workload, work patterns and the work environment), control (how much input your employee has in his or her own work), relationships (identifying unacceptable behaviour and promoting positive working), change (how organisational change is communicated and managed), role (whether each employee understands his or her purpose, responsibility and place in the organisational structure) and support (core training for the job whilst allowing for factors unique to the individual.)
So what might tackling workplace stress look like within your business?
1. Train your managers to support employees, and identify, manage and minimise stress. Communication and awareness is vital in this process, as workers should feel comfortable approaching their line manager to talk though any stressful situations. Therefore, line managers need to be able to spot the signs of stress, develop their existing leadership and communication skills and to explore the importance of positive manager behaviours.
2. Take a look at your stress management policies. You may want to consider setting up staff consultation groups, or making your staff aware of who they can talk to if they have a problem, such as employee assistance programmes (EAPs), coaching services, occupational health, line managers and human resource managers. If an employee does tell a manager about work-related stress, the manager should then conduct a risk assessment and take action to reduce the impact of stress on your employee.
3. Create an environment of corporate wellness. Not only should you provide your employees with the tools and interventions they need to prevent and reduce workplace stress, but you also need to boost employee engagement, support management and leadership development and promote a culture of wellbeing.
Comments are closed.