stress management

Workplace stress is a common problem and one which has the potential to increase the number of sickness-related absences in your workplace. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) says stress is the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other demands placed on them. In some work situations pressure can cause motivation, but excessive pressure has the potential to cause work-related stress.

According to the NHS website, psychological problems, including stress, anxiety and depression, are behind one in five GP visits.

Stress symptoms include:

palpitations
dry mouth
headaches
strange aches and pains
loss of appetite for food

Employees dealing with stress may be tempted towards unhealthy behaviour such as drinking, smoking or drug use and comfort eating. This has the potential to cause further health problems.

If you’re an employer, tackling stress in the workforce can decrease the number of staff sick days, boost productivity and increase morale. The HSE believes good management practices can help reduce work-related stress and provides management standards approach to help you take practical steps to minimise stress in the workplace. At OHBM we can help you implement these methods within your business.

As an employer, some of the things you can do to reduce employee stress levels include:

Promote activity

Does your workplace have a cycle to work scheme or 5-a-side football team your employees could get involved in? Do you offer reduced rates membership for local gyms? Exercise can help employees feel stronger physically and mentally, and enable them to deal with problems more calmly.

Avoid encouraging unhealthy habits

Does your workplace have a regular Friday night out in the local pub? While socialising is a great way to build relationships, you could encourage non-alcohol related activities instead. Bowling, a visit to a climbing wall, the cinema or the theatre are all enjoyable options that don’t revolve around alcohol.

Consider work-life balance

In the UK we work the longest hours in Europe. Lots of stressed employees could mean you’re expecting to much from them. Could you offer more flexible working hours, or at-home working arrangements to your team?

Talk to the team at OHBM to help you determine the best course of action to reduce stress in your workplace and boost the overall well-being of your team.

One in five employees has taken time off work because of stress. Workplace pressures, long working hours, dealing with difficult clients, differences of opinion, feeling undervalued and large workloads all contribute to staff feeling stressed and unhappy. This can take its toll on both physical and mental health.

Unhealthy, unhappy team members tend to take more time off than employees who feel valued in the workplace. The impact of absentee staff has a huge impact on the workforce, who have to pick up the slack, as well as on your bottom line.

Happy, healthy employees are more productive and take less time off work. At Occupational Health Business Management we can help you to achieve this within your workforce with our stress management service. It helps you get the best from your employees, and ensures you are working within HSE guidelines, which expect you to undertake suitable risk assessments to identify potential areas of stress at work.

At OHBM we’ll work closely with your business, using audit tools to expertly identify issues. We have the ability to refer “at risk” team members at short notice to our team of psychologists for stress management, assessment and treatment programs.

Talk to OHBM about your requirements as a business, or any concerns you might have.

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Stress Management And Wellbeing In The Workplace [Video]