Work stress has proven to be a major factor that leads to a large number of absences. This is primarily because employees are unable to deal with the situation created for them in their workplace. It is ideal to make sure that employees are taken care of and different situations are managed in a way to reduce stress factors as much as possible.
What is stress?
Stress is a coping mechanism for a person to deal with any situation that they feel uncomfortable in or that makes them feel endangered. Stress hormones come into play when the body undergoes any sort of troubling situations.
There can be various types of physical and mental changes that many people will go through when they come under such kinds of pressure. Typically, once our bodies overcome a particularly stressful event, they get time to rejuvenate.
However, when it comes to work-stress, things happen differently. The stressful event is an ongoing situation where people suffer from those stress factors for long durations. This causes many implications for the mental and physical health of a person.
How stress affects your mental and physical health
Stress is mainly believed to be a mental occurrence; however, it has a lot of physical implications as well. When it comes to physical issues, a person undergoing continuous stressful situations is susceptible to have respiratory issues, increased blood pressure, liver issues, digestive problems, muscular issues, and weakened immune system.
Cognitive effects of stress revolve around increased anxiety, depression, disorganized thinking, inability to make judgements and focus, and racing thoughts. Each of these issues can prove to be quite dangerous if they continue for a long duration. This is why it is important to figure out whether someone is going through work stress and help them cope with it.
Identifying work-related stress
There are various factors that you can look at when it comes to identifying whether you or someone in your workplace is suffering from work stress. It can be identified easily as signs of an individual or team exhibiting stress can be easily spotted.
When observing individuals, you must look at the following behaviours that might prove someone to be under stress:
- Changes in moods
- Emotional outburst (of anger or sadness)
- Nervousness
- Changes in personality
On the other hand, you can also figure out whether someone is suffering from stress in teams by observing the following changes:
- Increased arguments
- Increased complaints
- Decreased performance
- A high number of leaves
While these are the general behaviours to keep a look-out for when it comes to identifying stress in employees, there are many other symptoms that you will be able to see in your workplace. Keep your eyes peeled for any shift in behaviours and address the issue responsibly.
Relieving work stress
Reducing the level of work stress is essential to keep the mental and physical health of employees and teams well. There are various ways through which you can do this. The first thing to do is identifying whether a person is suffering from work stress. Upon identification, multiple stress-relieving actions can be taken to get the person out of their stressful environment.
Most of the times, people lack the right training to deal with the stress that leaves them in a difficult position. To make sure that this doesn’t happen, the management must hold regular training sessions to teach its employees how to go about dealing with their stress.
Other ways the management can reduce the work stress factor is to encourage individuals to take breaks as often as possible. This will give them a breathing space, even while there is a lot of work for them to do.
At times, you will also see that certain employees are uncomfortable around others because of varying reasons. Observing behaviours and making sure no one is treated unfairly can fix many stressful situations for the employees.
Dealing with employees exhibiting work stress
Having to deal with employees showcasing stress falls upon the management and they need to take the relevant steps to make sure that their work environment is proactive. This way, employees will be able to communicate better with their manager and explain stressful situations to them.
Practising open-mindedness, patience, identifying the issues, creating solutions, and creating a safe space for employees to talk to you are the optimal steps you should be taking to reduce work stress. Moreover, it is also important to thank them for taking a step to talk to you.
Each of these things will help in creating a better working environment for the management and the employees as people will be less stressed. Also, if they are ever stressed, they will know that the management will help them out.