Take stress out of the workplace
A new research study from Stanford University and Harvard Business School has named workplace stress as a contributor to at least 120,000 deaths a year and up to $190 billion in health care costs.
If that’s not sufficient motivation for you to reduce stress in your workplace, consider these additional negative business outcomes associated with high levels of employee stress and anger:
• Employee fatigue, concentration difficulties and diminished problem-solving abilities;
• Diminished quality, productivity and customer service;
• Under-reporting of critical business issues (to avoid blame);
• Poor teamwork and coordination among individuals who are resentful and feel they’ve been treated unfairly; and
• Increased absenteeism.
We would be outraged by 120,000 preventable employee deaths every year because of chemical poisoning, industrial accidents or other hazardous work-place conditions. So why is the reaction to deadly results of workplace stress so tepid? Why aren’t businesses more determined to reduce the associated risks, which extend well beyond health and safety and into productivity, quality, customer service, innovation and profit?
Here are two reasons organizations are not consistent and diligent in combating it:
1) Employers aren't certain about what they can do and how to be effective in reducing stress. As a result, front-line managers receive inadequate training (if any) on how to lead in a way that minimizes employees’ stress and maximizes engagement and motivation.
2) The effects of workplace stress are cumulative and invisible. That’s unlike the impact of other risks such as accidents, which are obvious and immediate.
How can you protect your business?
Know what to look for. The Stanford/Harvard study calls out several damaging workplace stressors, but you have to recognize them before you can plan to reduce them. The key stressors are work/family conflict, low job control, high job demands, low social support, and organiza-tional injustice.
And here are two strategies you can employ to ease those stressors:
1) Provide leadership training for frontline supervisors and managers. You can dramatically reduce all these stressors by training frontline supervisors and managers in leadership skills that promote respectful two-way communication, conflict resolution, problem solving and team building. These skills are behavioral, observable, controllable and, most importantly, teachable.
2) Take a more integrated approach to stress reduction and wellness promotion. Stress in the workplace has to be prioritized as an organizational problem and an individual employee health issue. Wellness advocates and coaches who work to improve employee health should work with health and safety, human resources, employee assistance programs and frontline management.
Creating an environment of healthy, high-performing and engaged employees is everyone’s business. Yes, it’s a complicated subject, and we have a lot more to learn about the causes and impact of workplace stress. But your business can apply what’s already known to reduce the significant risks of workplace stress to employee health, safety, engagement and productivity.
Mark Sagor is co-founder of Comprehensive EAP, based in Marlborough. Contact him at msagor@compeap.com.
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