Let’s start with the obvious: It’s not a good thing when your employees are stressed. Stress erodes morale, wrecks wellness, impairs productivity, and leads to an unhappy and unengaged team.
As a leader, you can’t always keep your team members stress-free, but there are some solutions you can implement to make your work environment as low-stress as possible.
Let me offer you some examples.
Solutions for Minimizing Employee Stress
- Encourage employees to take lunch breaks—and I mean real lunch breaks! An hour away from their desks! This starts with you leading by example. Also make it clear to employees that you’re on board with them using part of that hour to take a quick walk, hit the gym, or whatever else. One more thing: Make sure your workplace has a nice area where employees can gather and eat away from their cubicles.
- Also make it the norm for employees to disconnect at the end of their work day and on weekends. Again, this means leading by example: Stop sending after-hours emails!
- Make it clear that you actually want people to use their vacation days. Try not to make anyone feel like they are punished for taking time off—i.e. don’t let them return to a crushing, oppressive work load. And once again, lead by example; you need to take a vacation too!
- Allow some flexibility for working remotely or simply taking a mental health day from time to time.
- Finally, maintain an open-door policy, making it clear to team members that you’re around to talk about any issues weighing on them. Often, just talking to someone is enough to minimize feelings of anxiety and stress.
Those are my solutions for helping your team keep their stress levels at a healthy level—but of course, I want to hear your suggestions, too! Leaders, let me know how you help your people deal with workplace anxieties.
And, if you’d like me to talk you through some of these strategies one-on-one, I hope you’ll reach out to me for executive coaching. I’m always happy to help! You can contact me at www.rickgoodman.com or call 888-267-6098.
What is a solutions-oriented leader? Take the free Solutions-Oriented Leader Assessment now and claim your Comprehensive Guide to Achieve Success. Dr. Rick Goodman’s Solutions-Oriented Leader book is now available to order online. In this first-of-a-kind, comprehensive guide, author Dr. Rick Goodman leads you through the everyday challenges of the modern workplace while providing you with easy-to-implement solutions to achieve world-class results!
