Stress Awareness Month

Stress Awareness month has been held every April since 1992 and is in place to highlight causes of stress, share solutions to manage stress, and help reduce the stigma of speaking out about feeling stressed and overwhelmed.

Feeling stressed is common today with people more stressed now than ever recorded. Work is often a major stressor for many, because of reasons such as workloads, environment, and job insecurity. Starting conversations about stress and well-being at work can be critical for employee health and can also allow management to become aware of issues so that they can take action to improve working conditions.

Here are some of our suggestions to help address and reduce stress in your workplace:

• Encourage employees to have breaks, or to set boundaries for yourself to take breaks from work. Taking breaks regularly can allow you to have a moment to pause, reflect, and refresh, which can help to lower stress levels in the moment.
• Implement well-being check ins. This is simply checking in on employees, or colleagues, about how they are and giving them the opportunity to talk, be it about work or personal life. These check-ins can be done during one-to-one meetings or when returning to work from absence, for example.
• Ask open-ended questions to help understand a situation better. Using these questions allows employees to elaborate their response, instead of a “yes” or “I’m fine,” ask questions such as “tell me how you’re feeling” or “how are you managing your work/life balance?”
• Provide training on stress management, helping employees to understand and be aware of the stress in their lives and equip them with techniques to help manage stress they may face.

You don’t have to be an expert on stress to start making changes at work, but stress management training can help individuals build the confidence to begin. Neoskill’s stress management course also helps employees to understand their stress and learn techniques to effectively manage stress. For more information on our “Developing Your Stress Management Skills” course, and how we can customise our training to your specific requirements, contact us.