How stressed are your employees? According to the HBR article, How to Recover from Work Stress, According to Science, up to 61 percent of U.S. employees feel like they are burning out, and 43 percent experience high levels of daily stress. The more stressed your employees are the more likely they are to leave their positions within your company. In addition to the loss of talent or productivity, your employees’ stress can be a greater cost to your company.
What can you do to respond to the stress your employees are experiencing? As a human resources professional, you may not be able to influence position responsibilities or performance demands. Your benefits programs probably cover physical and mental health services. Understanding the toll stress has on your company and its members is key to creating a culture where employees can effectively address their stress.
In the HBR article mentioned above, Meister, Cheng, Dael, and Krings, defined recovery as the process of restoring symptoms of work stress (anxiety, exhaustion, and elevated levels of stress hormone, cortisol) to pre-stressor levels. The authors encourage readers to identify recovery as a skill to be developed and require both knowledge (of what works for an individual) and practice (the ability to do it). Creating a company culture around stress recovery can enable employees to develop their recovery skills.
As outlined in the article, employees can begin to address stress recovery by:
Detach Psychologically
Employees can benefit from mentally detaching from their work. If your workday is over but you are still mulling over an idea or problem, you are still working. Identifying an activity that requires your full attention—video games, reading or listening to a book, exercising, etc.—will allow you to disconnect in a meaningful way.
Take Micro-Breaks
When employees can take a brief ten-minute break every two hours, work stress is often lowered. Walking, meditating, stretching, or reading allows the individual to channel any stress they may be experiencing.
Choose the Path
The importance of choice cannot be undervalued. When developing a stress recovery plan, employees will benefit from choosing activities that most interest them. For instance, if your company offers lunchtime yoga and an employee goes because a colleague wants them to, the experience might be great for the colleague but not so for the employee who attends to please the other person.
Fire It Up
Whether it is brain synapses or heart rate, incorporating “high-effort recovery activities” pays off. Engaging in activities that require a high level of movement or focus is worthwhile. Research shows stimulating activities can be even more effective for recovery; consider learning a new language, playing an instrument, or even taking a fast walk.
Use Your Space
An employee’s work environment also plays a part in adding or relieving stress. Whether working from home or in a cubicle, employees can add plants or art to create a soothing space. If windows are in short supply, employees may want to walk outdoors during a micro-break.
When employees feel stressed, a common reaction can be to work harder and push through. Unfortunately, those strategies do not work and can exacerbate the issue. The boundaries of work and personal life are often blurred. Sharing strategies with your employees on ways to develop and practice a stress recovery plan while making it acceptable to do while at work may end up lowering everyone’s stress.
Reference:
HBR Digital Article, 2022 – How to Recover from Work Stress, According to Science; Alyson Meister, Bonnie Hayden Cheng, Nele Dael, and Franciscka Krings.
Written by Kim Abel, Ed.D., SPHR, Clinical Assistant Professor and Executive Director of Executive Degree Programs and the Center for Executive Education. www.linkedin.com/in/kim-abel