Making Work Less Stressful and More Engaging for Your Employees

It is a well-known fact that excessive stress is a health hazard but its effect on business performance and growth has been less talked about Stress makes individuals almost multiple times as prone to find employment elsewhere, incidentally impedes vital reasoning, and dulls imaginative capacities. This phenomena foster unusual absenteeism which is a major threat to the overall bottom line.

The better companies realize this, the better the workplace wellness sector grows. Many companies may have incorporated different wellness programs to combat this menace but quite unfortunate, this might not be the answer. In a recent study, researchers found that while there is an expectation that wellness programs will reduce the level of stress of employees on the job, it concludes that they often do not. This investigation adds to the developing assemblage of work recommending that such projects are not as powerful as effective as we think.

Hence we rather make a paradigm shift from a reactive approach to a proactive approaches for reducing stress at work, ones that foster employee well-being while simultaneously improving business performance. According to Natalia Peart, PhD, a clinical psychologist and leadership consultant affirms that burnout prevention requires reducing workplace stress while also upping employee engagement.

How to create a Work Environment That Decreases Stress

First thing first, do not put a square peg in a round whole. Low understanding of task, irrational cutoff times, misty desires, or unfriendly workspace prompts danger of moving into fly-or-die mode. This is something that happens to our bodies when we feel compromised. The passionate pieces of our cerebrums assume control over our capacity to think long haul, strategize, and enhance. In the long run this prompts burnout when not checked. To counter this impact, you have to construct a safe workplace and consolidate stress decrease propensities into your team's every day work processes through the following steps:

1. Increase psychological safety

Encourage collaborative participation in strategic sessions. Let everyone voices be heard, make your workspace unchallenging and less threatening. Let people know it’s okay to fail. Recognize team members who think outside the box, and ask your employees for feedback regularly to show you’re all in it together.

2. Build regular break times into the workday

The human brain can process for around 90-120 minutes before it needs to rest. That is the reason you ought to urge your workers to step away from their work areas and rationally withdraw from testing undertakings each couple of hours

3. Look into flexible work policies

If you want a highly adaptive team, then create an adaptable work environment. Give your employees flexibility by allowing them to work staggered hours, taking into account their varying needs. Hold one-on-one meetings to understand those needs and find alternative arrangements for people who are struggling with work-life balance

4. Be transparent

If your employees are confused about how their work connects to and serves both the short- and long-term company goals, they will practically become more stressed and less productive — especially in times of uncertainty. Part of your responsibility is to help them see the big picture, or the role they play in helping the company achieve its larger goals. While you may not be able to share everything with your team, you can provide them with the strategic details they need to understand how their work is contributing to the company’s mission. A recent study of 2.5 million teams found that, when team leaders communicated daily with their direct reports, team members were three times as likely to be engaged as when their team lead did not communicate regularly with them. Still, only 40% of team members responded that they are well-informed about their company’s strategic goals.

5. Make sure people are in the right roles

If your employees are not inclined to their jobs, then they are naturally going to be less engaged. It’s quite necessary to measure and align employee’s strength to his job role. Encourage room for continuous improvement in a constructive manner.

6. Create a culture of recognition

Recognition is one of the key strategy to boosting employee engagement and voluntary commitment to work. The effect releases endorphins into the brain which in-turn relaxes the brain and prevent stress. Research has shown that companies with high-recognition cultures perform better and have less turnover than those that don’t. This is, perhaps, because support and recognition make it easier for people to cope with the demands of work by showing them that their efforts are valued.

7. Deepen engagement further by instilling a sense of purpose

If the only thing motivating your team to go to work is just salaries, you might suffer effective engagement which in-turn depicts the overall bottom-line. When employees cannot connect the impact of their work to the overall companies’ goal and performance, they often get disconnected and less motivated. Help your team understand by showing them the impact their work has both within the company, in other departments, as well as outside the organization.