Stress in the workplace is a serious issue affecting every industry nationwide. The reality of stress in the workplace is that if unmanaged, can derail an entire organization. Workers who are stressed often “infect” coworkers, managers and even clients with their stress. Stress slows productivity, causes negative moods and creates social problems. This “domino effect” of stressed employees infecting others is dangerous.
Some common occurrences as a direct result of stress include:
- Physical effects such as weight gain or weight loss
- Psychological effects such as depression
- Increased absenteeism and illness
- Increased number of workplace accidents
- Low morale
- Increase in employee turnover
- Reduced productivity
Some common signs of workplace stress can be classified in four different categories:
1. Emotional, which include confusion, loss of confidence, forgetfulness, lack of enthusiasm, negativity and depression.
2. Intellectual, which includes lack of focus, missing the point, unable to make decision, few ideas, thinking about the past, decreased performance and missed deadlines.
3. Social, which includes accidents, carelessness, overreactions, uncontrollable anger, confusing speech, withdrawal and general aggressiveness.
4. Physical, which includes sweating, flushed, increased smoking or drinking, eating too much or too little, headaches and insomnia.
If these signs begin to appear in employees, it is important to manage the problem early on. Some good management tactics start with listening to the employee and seeing if they will tell you the cause of the problem. In some cases, they may have something specific that can be addressed directly. If an employee does not seem to have anything specific or is unwilling to talk, involving human resources and medical health staff to assist in determining the issue can be helpful. Also checking with other staff (tactfully of course!) to determine if they are aware of any issues is also an option.
Once the cause of the stress is identified, working towards solving it is the next step. Several months of employee follow up is important to determine if any corrective actions are improving the situation.
An additional tool in determining and solving problems can be using employee profiling to determine how the employee functions. LePhair offers these kinds of employee profiles designed exclusively to provide managers with better insight into their staff. We encourage you to contact us and see how we can help resolve any workplace stress your employees may have.