How to Deal with Stress at Work and Improve Productivity
Stress is a silent killer. It kills your career satisfaction and productivity at work. According to a 2017 CNBC report, around 60% of workers feel stress for more than three days a week, and 41% of small business owners admit their companies are the top stressors. In another study, approximately 56% of employees have accepted that anxiety and stress affect their workplace performance.
If you are among such employees or business owners, you need to get rid of your stress to improve your productivity. Here are some practical steps for your help:
Identify the root causes
For well-management of your stress, you need to find out what makes you feel stressed at work. Stressors can be a heavy workload, poor work-life balance, salary, personal reasons, or work atmosphere. Take a note of everything at the workplace to find out the main reason behind your stress. For example, suppose that a heavy workload is making you feel uncomfortable. Start working to minimize your workload by organizing it. Balance your personal and professional life if you notice you have poor work-life balance is making you stressed. In simple words, work to sort out the stressors after identifying them.
Communicate openly
Whether you are an employer or an employee, you should have open communication at your workplace. As an employer, you should comprehend the need for the rest of your company staff. Allow them to take a short break if they are continuously working for your company. You, too, should take a break from a long work schedule. Communicate with you and your employees to know what makes them feel uncomfortable at work. Encourage an open-work culture so that no one can feel bad while being at work.
Appreciate and rewards
Appreciation or getting recognized makes people feel better. Consequently, they are energized and focus more on what they are doing. You should appreciate yourself or your workers on any achievements, whether they are big or small. Present personalized stickers to appreciate the work done by you or your staff. Having a look at these presents help you feel better when you are stressed, or you are feeling exhausted at work.
Avoid multitasking
Doing several works at a time is also a stressor. You, humans, are not computers, programmed for carrying out several jobs at the same time. Multitasking divides concentration and triggers the chances of having so many errors. Instead of multitasking, encourage you to accomplish another work after the completion of the first. You focus entirely on one job, and so, you do it better with no error. In addition, you are comfortable.
Maintain a healthy work culture
For better productivity, happy hours, free snacks, and ping pong tables are great for you or your employees. Besides, you should take and allow workers to have small breaks between working hours. You can offer more flexibility in working hours in place of tight office hours. You have no worries about reaching your office soon. Further, online counselling or joining a health club can be a more exciting perk for you or your company staff.
Organize your workplace
Clutters at your desk also cause you to feel stressed. An organized desk takes a lot of your time to find a file or other work-associated things when you need them. And this unnecessary time consumption hampers your work and productivity, apart from making you anxious. You should organize everything on your work desk. Use custom labels or stickers to name files and objects while organizing them.
Create a boundary
Work is essential to living your life. However, it is not everything in your life. Apart from your business or work, you have a family, friends, and relatives. You should avoid doing work 24/7, which is common in today’s digital world. Leave your work at your office and do not do any official work when you are with your family members, relatives, or friends. In brief, you should have a proper balance between your work and personal life and let not them get mixed.
Take expert’s advice
Sometimes it happens that dealing with stress yourself doesn’t work. Some of you find it hard to know the cause and how to manage issues yourself. You should talk to your family members, friends or relatives on the topic that makes you anxious. Do not hesitate to consult an expert when you find nothing is helping you well to manage your stress. The expert counsel you and train you what to do to deal with your stress at work.
Conclusion
Stress at work is not only associated with the job you do but also with what work culture you have, how organized your desk is, how much you work, what type of a worker you are, etc. Working on how to manage stressors after identifying them will help you a lot. In the extreme case, you should take an expert's advice to deal with your stress.
