Stress isn’t a mental illness in itself, but it can lead to serious conditions like anxiety or depression. These are bad news for individual sufferers, but also for you as a business owner or manager. A toxic culture, absenteeism, human error and poor productivity could all follow on from having stressed-out workers.
And because of the legal obligations, in worst case scenarios, you could even find yourself in trouble with WorkSafe or SafeWork (depending on your business location).
How can you manage stress in the workplace?
As is so often the case, prevention is better than cure. And when you are carrying out that stress risk assessment we mentioned earlier, you should consider six underlying influences on stress levels:
- The demands of the job – For example the workplace environment, the workload and work hours.
- Individual control – The level of autonomy employees have over how they work.
- Support – What resources and frameworks does your business have in place to help individuals. For example, an EAP provider.
- Relationships – How well people work together. How you guard against issues like harassment or bullying.
- Team roles – Do employees understand their role and are roles designed so that they don’t cause unnecessary conflict.
- Change – Is organisational change managed smoothly and communicated well.
Putting processes in place to manage stress in the workplace
Once you have considered the risks from all of the above, you will want to put processes (backed up by written policies and procedures) in place to manage them. In many cases, good general workplace management will feed into minimising the risk of stress. For example, well-organised workflows, realistic deadlines and a pleasant workplace culture.
There will be other more specific initiatives you can introduce, too, like stress-management and well-being programmes. Many companies offer Employee Assistance Programs as part of a benefit package. These kinds of specialists offer third-party support like counselling or coaching for assisting with issues like stress. If you do not have one, talk to us because we can help with finding the right one for your business.
Mental health first aiders
One particularly interesting approach is to train mental health first aiders in your organisation.
We are not talking about a replacement for trained mental health professionals. Mental health first aiders can help with early intervention – spotting issues before they develop and assisting staff in getting the right professional support. They may also be the first line of support in a crisis. The very presence of mental health first aiders in your business will help to raise awareness of issues like stress, and demonstrate that you take it seriously.
Expert advice
To find out more about managing stress in the workplace and developing some strategies or policies, contact your local HR Dept.
