STRESS MANAGEMENT

Give Your Stress Wings And Let It Fly Away !!

Stress in the workplace can make people dread walking in to the office every morning and, make them worry about their jobs at night. When staff is unhappy, they are less efficient, less effective and more likely to squander work hours or quit. Stress affects not just morale, but a company's bottom line.

The HR department is often charged with creating and promoting corporate culture. Yet in the day-to-day scramble of running a business, it is employees and management themselves who create the climate — of stress or calm, discontent or satisfaction. Even so, Human Resources can step in and play a critical role in managing workplace attitudes and behaviors. By maintaining open lines of communication between the HR division and other departments, policies can be enforced and early action can be taken to prevent critical issues from arising.

HR should regularly assess the attitudes and practices of an organization's managers and identify areas of concern. HR should be the friendly, helpful, go-to division that can provide diplomacy and guidance to help managers effectively guide and support their staff. HR can also implement programs that encourage positive attitudes, relationship building and a generally healthy lifestyle. Not all stress is bad; good stress can motivate workers to stretch themselves and meet a new challenge. Not all stress comes from the workplace. Financial difficulties, marital problems and other stressors originate in employees’ personal lives—and there’s not much that HR professionals can do to change those issues.

Stress Management @ PricewaterhouseCoopers:

• Two years ago, PwC restructured work teams to promote employee work/life balance. Instead of having one employee per client account, the company created teams of employees who manage a group of clients. If an employee is out of the office, other team members can cover for him. With the new structure, “personal obligations—attending my son’s baseball game that afternoon—are factored into the plan. Staffing options are greater when you draw upon a team.
• At PwC, managers get reports on whether employees are taking vacation time. Posters with pictures of beaches pose the question: Have you taken your vacation? The firm’s campaign “raises awareness. People need to disconnect from work, spending time with their families or following a passion, not chained to e-mail or the phone every day.”
• If a PwC employee sends an e-mail on a weekend, a pop-up screen reminds the individual, “It is the weekend and important to disconnect and allow others to do the same. Please send your e-mail at the beginning of the workweek.”
• PwC offers a two-hour elective stress survival training course. “It helps participants understand root causes, how you react to stress and an individual strategy for managing stress.

Stress Management @ HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation:

• HomeBanc Mortgage Corp. in Atlanta gives employees an extra 24 hours, in addition to holidays and vacation time, that it calls “being there” time. Employees can use the time “whenever they need a couple of hours during the year to attend a school play or go to a teacher conference without using up vacation time,” says Barbara Aiken, vice president of associate satisfaction.
• HomeBanc contracts with Corporate Chaplains of America (http://www.chaplain.org/) to provide counseling services to its employees. “The chaplains visit each office once a week and are available 24/7 via pager and cell phone for employees in need,” says Aiken. “It is appreciated by associates of every faith, and even those who have no religious affiliations.” 

Research by one client, showed poor teamwork and ineffective supervision were the two most important factors leading to employee stress. It’s stressful trying to manage people, even if you have received training. It’s stressful being managed by someone who doesn’t know how to manage, and perhaps compensates for their insecurity by being controlling.

Providing training to help employees do their jobs better can be an important way to reduce stress and improve performance & efficiency. Equally important is providing training to managers, especially those whose deficient supervisory skills may be causing stress for subordinates.

Restructuring work teams. Staffing options are greater when you draw upon a team.

Encouraging employees to take vacations and weekends off. 

Offering flextime. “One of the biggest stressors is balancing work and home life. Creative scheduling helps employees. It works well for single people who are active and families trying to juggle child care,” says Von Madsen, SPHR, assistant vice president and HR manager at ARUP Laboratories, a clinical and anatomic pathology reference laboratory owned by the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Forty percent of its 1,800 employees take advantage of flextime schedules. Many employees work seven 10-hour days in a row and then have seven days off.

It is also very important to give employees more personal time. Help workers cope reducing the causes of stress is important, but many workers also may need a hand learning how to better cope with stress, even positive stress, in the workplace. Offer a variety of employee assistance. According to the 2006 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Benefits Survey Report, 71 percent of companies surveyed offer employee assistance programs (EAPs)—or provide help once a problem has been identified. EAPs provide both counseling and help resolving problems, such as with legal and elder care issues.

Some programs take a unique approach to giving employees someone to talk to like HomeBanc contracts with Corporate Chaplains of America.

Invest in stress reduction training. Stress management training courses are a useful component of a larger stress reduction strategy because the courses build awareness. The company also includes stress management modules in other training courses, such as supervisory training, which reach more employees than stand-alone courses.