Innovative Ways to Work Towards a Stress-Free Office
For our second National Stress Awareness Month instalment, we're talking about tackling and reducing stress in the workplace; something we're always striving to achieve for ourselves and helping our clients to manage through their office environment!
According to Perkbox, 59% of UK adults experience stress as a result of work, and 45% of workers say that their place of work doesn't have anything in place to help reduce employees' stress levels.
These significant statistics are an indication that more employers need to work towards tackling stress in their workplace, particularly as stress is one of the biggest causes of absenteeism at work!
Although a little stress at work is good for motivation, it shouldn't get to the point where it is hindering an employees' productivity and affecting them outside of work.
To make sure this isn't happening in your office, here are some effective ways of creating a stress-free environment in your workplace:
Have an Open Door Policy to Encourage Communication
Good communication between you and your staff, as well as between colleagues, is the key to a happy workforce. Communication helps to remove risk of misinterpretation and misunderstanding whilst also giving you and your managers the chance to be clear on the expectations you have for your team.
This helps to minimise the risk of employees underperforming, a situation that can increase the stress levels of multiple parties. Instead, be approachable and encourage honesty and communication within your team! It’s good to talk.
Allow Flexible Working
Flexible working options are becoming more popular for office workers around the globe and having this option available is fantastic for helping to reduce stress at work.
Many employees experience stress as a result of their life outside of work or even the commute to the office, but as an employer, you can help to reduce this stress by offering more flexible working options to your team.
If a member of your team has a commute time which is doubled by having to be in the office at a specific time, you could offer the flexibility to adjust their working hours.
You could potentially halve their commute time and extend the amount of time they’re able to spend with their family at the start and end of each day. This could be just the boost they need to transform their mental state and boost their attitude towards coming to work.
Flexible working is fast becoming a popular stress-busting method for employers, with CIPD reporting that 69% of organisations now offer flexible working options to help reduce stress in the workplace.
““Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge.” ”
Provide a Fantastic Environment to Work In
To fully understand how to create a stress-free environment at work, you need to look at all aspects of the workplace; interior design included. A noisy atmosphere, cluttered office environment and lack of space can often add to the stress that employees experience in the workplace.
Modern offices are now incorporating breakout areas, biophilic design, acoustic features and innovative ergonomic furniture to provide their employees with an environment where they’ll look forward to coming to work every day.
Prioritise the Health and Wellbeing of Your Employees
Good health goes hand in hand with a reduction in stress and an increase in happiness. Employers can offer healthy incentives as a way of reducing stress at work. Examples of this can include: encouraging movement in the office, offering gym memberships to employees and stocking the office kitchen with healthy snacks that will fuel your team throughout their working day.
Physical activity helps to regulate hormones and reverse the negative effects of stress, whilst a healthy diet helps to improve mood and motivation.
There are many ways of reducing stress in the workplace, and National Stress Awareness Month is a better excuse than ever to start implementing some stress-busting changes in your office!
If you didn't check out our 5 Stress-Coping Mechanisms That Actually Work blog post, you can catch it here.
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