how to deal with stress at work

Preventing workplace stress is in everyone’s interests. I cover four fundamental major causes of stress in the workplace and share tips on how to deal with stress at work.

Stress at work costs the UK economy £28bn per year with 23.3m sick days taken. 

As a manager, you should be thing how to deal with stress at work for yourself personally and just as importantly, for your team. If team members are not at work because of workplace stress, they can’t do great work to hit team targets.

I am covering the 4 big causes of stress at work based on my experience - rather than giving you lots of tips on personal stress management - to help you when dealing with stress at work.

In my view, the first place to start with how to manage stress at work is to manage your workload. The more overworked you are, you more stressed you will be. It is that simple. One of the best ways to handle stress at work is to practice saying no. 

Learning when to say no and how to say no are vital to handle stress at work. As a manager, to reduce employee stress in the workplace, learn to say no effectively on behalf of your team. Overwork is one of the biggest causes of stress at workplace I know. 

The next biggest cause of stress at work is having poor relationships with your boss or teammates. When thinking about how to deal with stress at work, think about your relationships and what you can do to improve them.

Focus on your relationship with your boss first. There are lots of actions you can proactively take to improve this relationship professionally and personally. Better relationships are great for handling stress in the workplace.

Another of causes of stress at workplace, is not getting the right help and support. Trying to deliver and learn at the same time is very stressful. Learning takes time, which you are not likely to have enough of. Get the best help you can from inside or outside of work – this is a workplace stress solution you must use!

Organisational conflicts cause a lot of workplace stress, particularly because they are outside many people control to fix. You can contribute to a solution and take steps to resolve these conflicts, even if you are the most junior person in the office. Proactively manage this stress at workplace.

If you have any questions on “Preventing Workplace Stress – 4 Major Causes of Stress & What To Do”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.

 Jess

Enhance.training

Pressure at work is next to impossible to avoid, not matter what job you do. Therefore learning how to deal with pressure at work is a pretty sensible skill set to develop. 

 Your ability to productively manage pressure at work is as important to your career progress as developing many other more obvious skills. I take you through 6 tactics to deal with pressure at work, which will help you with managing stress in the workplace.

  The first tactic in learning how to manager pressure at work is to know your pressure threshold. This is the point at which healthy pressure and stress – which gets you motivated and productive – starts turning to unhealthy pressure and stress – which leads to exhaustion and worse.

 The second tactic in how to deal with pressure at work is to prioritise ruthlessly. You only have so much time, so making the most of your time to do the most important tasks makes sense. Ruthlessly prioritise and I share a couple of tools to help. This helps manage too much pressure at work. 

  A great method when thinking how to work under pressure at work is to turn big tasks into small tasks. We have all faces what seems a huge daunting task. We don’t know how we are going to complete it. When faced with this at work, think about the first small step to take on the journey to completing this task. Then the next and so on. This is great in how to handle stress at work. 

 Setting boundaries between work and home is another good tactic in how to cope with pressure at work. Getting very clear with what the expectations on you are, is also very important in how to manage work pressure. Uncertainty and vague expectations are a source of stress and pressure in themselves. 

 Working out how and when to ask for help is also essential in how to deal with stress at work. There are lot of people you can ask for help in and out of work. I share my tips with you.

 To give you concreate actions on how to cope with pressure at work I go through 9 practical pressure management techniques that I have used very successfully for years. 

 Feeling under pressure at work and not know how to reduce the stress and anxiety that comes with this is a horrible feeling. I have unfortunately been there at work. 

 Having sensible tactics to deal with pressure at work is extremely useful to stop yourself getting exhausted and everything getting too much. 

Stress in the workplace can have many origins or come from one single event. It can impact on both employees and employers alike. It is generally believed that some stress is okay (sometimes referred to as “challenge” or “positive stress”) but when stress occurs in amounts that you cannot handle, both mental and physical changes may occur.

The majority of employees experiencing burnout will remain at work. Being aware of changes in attitudes and energy can help with early identification. Employees may not realize that they are dealing with burnout and may instead believe that they are just struggling to keep up during stressful times. Stress, however, is usually experienced as feeling anxious and having a sense of urgency while burnout is more commonly experienced as helplessness, hopelessness, or apathy.

Employees may not be aware of the negative impacts on their performance that this can have, such as increased errors or lower productivity. Employers and co-workers may attribute the changes to a poor attitude or loss of motivation. The negative effects of burnout can increase significantly before anyone recognizes or addresses the problem and unaddressed burnout can increase the chance of developing clinical depression or other serious conditions.

Some of the signs and symptoms that an employee experiencing burnout may exhibit include:

• Reduced efficiency and energy
• Lowered levels of motivation
• Increased errors
• Fatigue
• Headaches
• Irritability
• Increased frustration
• Suspiciousness
• More time spent working with less being accomplished

Severe burnout can also result in:

• Self-medication with alcohol and other substances
• Sarcasm and negativity
• Debilitating self-doubt