Tackling workplace stress through positive changes

Stress is a natural reaction to having too much pressure in our lives and being unable to cope with demands. Some stress can be good, but in the long run, it can start to impact your people’s productivity. According to a health and safety at work report by HSE, over 11 million days were lost at work in 2016 because of stress at work¹.

It’s neither possible, nor practical to ‘stress-proof’ your workplace. However, there are a number of things you can do to support your employees. Prevention is better than cure, so you could tackle stress through positive changes in your workplace:

1. Manage your employees’ workload by prioritising work and eliminating the unnecessary tasks.
2. Provide regular training, to ensure your people can do the work expected of them. You could also regularly review their training needs, to ensure they have the skills and knowledge needed for their job.
3. Stay aware of signs of conflict within your team. Resolving issues at an early stage can benefit your workforce.
4. Make sure your people work towards common and clearly defined goals. Having clear goals will empower your employees and help them succeed in their individual tasks.
5. Provide regular and constructive feedback. It’s important to support and encourage your team regularly - not just at appraisal time but at more frequent basis.
6. Promote exercising through company initiatives and relevant national fitness days. In addition to reducing stress, exercise can increase overall health and wellbeing of your employees.
7. Encourage a healthy work and life balance. For example, you could encourage your employees to take their annual leave. You could also discourage them from regularly taking work home in the evenings or weekends.
8. Healthy eating and exercising can help to tackle stress, so you could consider providing fresh fruit in your workplace.

Most importantly, everyone’s capabilities for measuring pressure are different. Understanding your individual employees can help you greatly in preventing stress in your workplace.

To read more about employee wellbeing, click here.

Please remember as a Chamber member, you have free access to AXA PPP healthcare’s Health at Hand medical information phone service. To sign up, click here.

¹Work-related stress. Health and Safety Executive, 2016.

Fife Chamber are introducing AXA PPP healthcare to provide business healthcare cover. The healthcare insurance plans are underwritten by AXA PPP healthcare. AXA PPP healthcare is authorised by the Prudential Regulations Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulations Authority. Registered in England number 3148119. Registered office: AXA PPP healthcare, 5 Old Broad Street, London. EC2N 1AD