Six ways to create a stress free environment for your workforce
Today everybody talks about stress. Every employee goes through personal as well as professional challenges. It could be inability to handle the work, not equipped at competencies, not aware of ways to let go of small issues raised at work and home due to miscommunication and so on.
A study by Workplace Stress – Impact and Outcomes, India Study 2016 done by Chesnut Global Partners India and SHRM India revealed top reasons for stress are respect at workplace, overtime, work life balance and feedback from manager. On a personal level top stress was due to financial commitments and personal responsibilities.
As a human resource or a learning and development specialist you are in an important need to take care of this undue stress faced by employees. Here are six simple steps which can be used at your workplace to help employees overcome there stress from your end
1.Music: Music has a profound impact on our state of mind. When employees usually come in to office they might be already stressed because of what happened at home in the morning, traffic, weather conditions, thinking about being on time, over stressing about all the work to be completed, etc. So if you notice people as they enter the office and first few hours you will see them all not focused and calm and composed.
What music does is , it helps people to shift there mind, bring focus to one thing, helps them unconsciously connect to each other. Music is a vibration, when all of the people start connecting and vibrating at the same level it helps them to feel connected and if the music is soothing and relaxing then it calms there mind.
So make it a practice to play light music which can give a calming effect to the mind in the mornings. This will set the tone for them for the rest of the day.
A word of caution don’t try a soothing music post lunch 🙂
2.Movement: One of the biggest reason all of the working force are going to get into health problems in the future is because they are constantly sitting at one place. The research predicts that we are almost in the sitting posture for 7.7 hours a day which is not how human being are designed for. Many office have even introduced stating workplaces.
By informing the employees of the impacts of sitting at one place for a long time and introducing them to few ways to stretch and relax themselves for every hour or so will allow the people to release body stress, relax their pent up emotions stored in body also allows them to come back and focus much more better at current work.
3.CSR: There are many companies which do CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). It is done in the form of donation, rating funds, increasing awareness and also meeting and doing a physical work etc to support them. Back when i was working in Citi Bank we used to go and clean, build houses for people. Now instead of the CSR fund just being used at a benefit for others by using and involving your employees in doing a task together outside office not only helps in building a good relationships also help them to release their stress. When they see they can make a transformation in another person life it also motivates them to do well at work and improve their overall life.
Source: www.charities.org
4.Yoga: Many companies again have incorporated yoga session in their office. It again is good way to get your employees physically and mentally fit. It helps them to become more calm, relaxed, they tend to become more flexible and relaxed at work. Doing yoga at office again helps employees to get connected to each other and bond well. Doing any form of exercise together brings the unconscious rapport between people therefore when they step back at work it helps them to connect well and bond.
Corporate Yoga Programs Have Many Benefits
• Employees that are happy and full of energy, and as a result, more productive
• Decline in stress-related sick occurrences
• Improved concentration, decision-making skills and ability to multi-task
• Improves employee alertness and ability to react more calmly in demanding situations
• Relief of head, neck and back strain, carpal tunnel syndrome, insomnia, high blood pressure
and work-related injuries from repetitive motion
• Better customer service
• Enhanced employee attitude and outlook
• General well-being in the workplace which reduces employee turnover (Source – Yogadistrict)
5.Stress Buster Sessions: Getting employees to release their stress by conducting games, activities, dance etc within office hours for one to two hours a week can help. Forming various groups and appointing captains for them, getting the four groups to perform each week and awarding them at the month end etc are ways to get them engaged. The idea here they do the work and you are just organising the work, if we step in and do the work it might only end up as more stress for your. Finding the right resources who are good at leading, who are good at cultural finding ways to get them to do the task themselves is the skill. Using your intranet and social media tools to promote the event helps in more participation.
Always you can up the competition as by having it within floors, departments, buildings, offices, regions, etc.
6.Mentor & Mentee Programs: The employee might genuinely have good intentions but able to handle work. He might not be using the right tool, method, process , etc which can lead to more time and effort therefore stress. He might have an issue with his boss which he is not able to express therefore he is stressed. By having a mentor mentee program and ensuring they are meeting on a regular basis you can help in reducing stress and build more intelligent workforce. At many companies this process fails because there is no structure to the whole process. For an effective mentoring to happen both mentor and mentee needs to be trained on their roles. A classroom session if not atleast a learning course. Then the structure on how to have the conversations and the intervals to be discussed clearly. Outcomes to be reviewed and support them with more information and ways to add value to the coaching session should be regularly done. If only two people are connected and introduced as mentor-mentee and an email talking about what should be done will have no impact and might end up as a waste of time and resources.
These are six ways you can impact the stress level at work of your workforce
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Ganesh Kumar S
EQ Ignitor | Emotional Intelligence Trainer | Entrepreneur | Life Coach | Author
Super info… Must apply it
Excellent sir . I try to adopt . thanks