Creative Ways to De-Stress Your Workforce

Stressed employees are a major drain on any organization’s resources. Not only does productivity and efficiency drop, but the feelings of apathy are contagious and can spread through the office before you’ve even had an opportunity to address the issues. You do not want to be at the stage where you feel like you are continuously putting out fires – you need to implement creative ways to de-stress your workforce so that the negative impact of stress is avoided altogether.

Break times

Brains are organs that behave like muscles – and that means that they get fatigued when overexerted. Ensure that staff leaves their desks for breaks and lunchtime – introduce a ‘no eating at the desk’ policy and fit out a room especially for downtime. Have comfortable chairs, coffee machines for offices, and make sure that staff is able to relax and switch off.

It feels counterintuitive to suggest that having more breaks increases productivity and efficiency but being able to step away from your desk and take a breather allows you to revisit an issue with a fresh perspective.

Be active

Arrange group activities that can be taken by your employees. There are some great corporate activities that are very popular and successful, but you don’t have to go all out – it could be a lunchtime walk around the local park, tai chi, or ask someone to come in and give a guided meditation. Group activities are a great way to forge interdepartmental relationships, collaboration and reduce stress. Too much time is spent staring at a computer screen and not interacting with colleagues which adds to feelings of stress.

Working hours

If your employees are under pressure to be contactable 24/7 for work, when are they supposed to switch off? There will be occasions when employees may need to stay late or come into the office, but these should be rare and certainlynot be the accepted norm. Confirm to your employees that they should not be answering or sendingemails, or acceptingtelephone calls out of office hours unless it is an emergency. By giving clear direction as to your expectations, your employees’ stress levels will be greatly diminished.

Emails

The problem with emails is that recipients often feel pressured to respond immediately to them. However, if you are mid-task and don’t want your workflow interrupted, it can be hard to remain focused if notifications are distracting you which can make you feel stressed. Implement strongemail guidelines for your organization.

• Set an out of office response to all emails saying that the email has been received and responded to within 24 hours.
• Turn off email notifications.
• Have set times scheduled for responding to emails during the day.

Unless your teams are waiting for business-critical information from emails to complete their role, they will not need to be constantly accessing their email.

A stressed workforce is not good for business. You need to take adequate steps to protect your employees from burnout. By encouraging regular breaks from work during the day, defining your expectation of their work hours and implementing email controlling guidelines, you are showing your staff that your organization values their health and wellbeing.