It’s likely that your employees are experiencing stress each day, whether at home, at work, or a combination of the two. This year has been especially difficult for us all, and your employees may be feeling heightened levels of pressure. Beyond the immediate effects on your team’s health and wellbeing, stress can decrease productivity in the workplace and increase your health insurance costs.
Educating your employees about stress while cultivating a healthy culture of well-being in the workplace can benefit your team and your bottom line. What can employers do? Here’s what you should know.
How to Help Your Employees Manage Stress in the Workplace
Look out for warning signs
Before you could be of help, you would need to look out for the signs of a stressed employee. A cheerful and smiling employee of yours who has a sudden burst of anger is definitely one of the signs of stress. Others include:
- Bad temper
- Fatigue
- Loss of interest at work
- Sudden shift of focus or trouble concentrating
- Complaints of constant headaches
- Depressed or easily irritable
If you sense a change in your employee, it is always worth checking in. You may not know something is wrong until the very last minute, but a simple call or message can encourage them to open up to you.
Encourage a healthy lifestyle
Help your employees to reduce stress in the workplace by encouraging a healthy lifestyle. You could create a wellness program for the workplace that helps them to improve their overall health. Offer subscriptions to fitness apps, meditation guides, or counseling services. Create a schedule of sports or fitness activities (as long as local COVID-19 restrictions allow) so that your employees can get involved in the exercise. Instead of getting pizza and doughnuts delivered to the office, cater a healthier option like vegetable curry, tofu salad, or lentil loaves. Stock up the office pantry with healthy snacks like granola bars, fruit, and plenty of water.
Encourage a flexible work schedule
Now, more than ever, your employees may need to balance work and life. Taking care of the elderly or shielding loved ones means running more errands in addition to homeschooling kids and working. To help alleviate some stress, be flexible on starting and finishing hours. Allow employees to start work early and leave early so that they can run errands in the afternoon. Perhaps they need to take longer lunches to support their family’s needs. A bit of flexibility now can help reduce stress and improve your employee retention rate.
Don’t encourage working overtime
Team leaders and managers unknowingly add to the team’s stress. Forcing team members to work after hours even when the work is proceeding according to the deadline can add to the stress an employee feels. Expecting an immediate response to late-night emails or discussing a new project just before employees sign out for the day makes life more hectic. Your team needs time to unwind and enjoy their personal lives. Respect this and stick to working during official work hours.
Encourage your team to adapt a healthy habits for a stress-free life. Not only will they be happier, but your business will benefit.
ABOUT RMS Insurance Brokerage, LLC
At RMS Insurance Brokerage, our expertly crafted policies are written specifically for the hospitality industry. We offer custom-tailored solutions to meet any venue’s specific needs. For more information, contact our knowledgeable experts today at (516) 742-8585.