Stress in the workplace: How to reduce the effects of stress on employees with tech
Stress is an issue that is affecting an increasing amount of the working population year on year. In 2016, UK business recorded 11.7million days that were taken off work due to stress, anxiety, and depression. The financial cost of this equated to at least £2.4billion. Is stress affecting your workforces’ ability to work efficiently?
Stress is a psychological problem rather than a physical one and affects most of us at some point in our lives. According to the Health & Safety Executive, the main work factors cited by respondents as causing work related stress were workload pressures, including tight deadlines and too much responsibility and a lack of managerial support.
Stress at work – the numbers
In the UK between 2015 and 2016, there were almost 500,000 cases of anxiety, depression and stress in the workplace. The most common occupations to report higher levels of stress sat within public service industries, such as healthcare and teaching professionals. Indeed, the overall numbers show that 37 percent of all work related sickness was attributed to stress.
The issue isn’t just bound to the UK either, recent research by the American Psychological Association revealed that 24 percent of adults reported experiencing extreme levels of stress. This has led to the majority of respondent adults reporting at least one chronic illness.
Considering the numbers, it is likely that a selection of your workforce has had to deal with stress at some point in their career. So what can a company do to help their employees avoid the signs of stress?
How to recognise stress on an employee
Employers have a responsibility under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to ensure the health and wellbeing of their employees, including stress and conducting risk assessments for work-related illness.
An employee’s ability to cope with the demands made upon them may be adversely affected by a change in circumstances at home or at work. Perhaps they’ve suffered bereavement or maybe a build-up of small worries that play on your mind constantly. More prevalently than the financial cost to business, stress will have a detrimental and serious effect on health if left unchecked.
Anyone who has suffered with stress knows that the ability to think rationally is impaired. However, the physical effects are frightening particularly if you haven’t correlated them with stress. The most common symptoms that can help identify when an employee is potentially suffering from stress include:
- Headaches
- Panic attacks
- Fatigue
- Insomnia
- Chest pain
- Stomach upset
- Muscle cramps
- High blood pressure
Panic attacks can occur with those suffering from stress, and is the most obvious outward sign of when a company should see whether support is needed. Panic attacks come in the form of struggling to breathe, pains in the chest and are brought on by hyperventilating.
As an employer, support for the worker is an imperative step towards a quick recovery. Reassuring employees that there is someone to talk to within the company will give an outlet to vocalise any problems that employees may be having. If possible, regular one to one sessions with team leaders or line managers will help to spot concerns before they develop into requiring time away from work. From this vocalisation of the issue, there are a number of ways that a company can tackle the issue.
The tech to reduce stress and strain in a workplace
Stress can affect any profession, in cases particularly those who are qualified to treat our illnesses in high pressure environments. Health professionals in the UK are seeing a rising level of stress leading to burnout among professional doctors in the NHS. It’s reported that the knock-on effect of this has seen an increased amount of substance abuse; a reaction seen regularly as a self-medication for stress.
Technology can play a vital role in helping office stress levels. Try these solutions:
- In the case of stress related substance abuse, a company can help their employees avoid steer away from self-medication by measures such as impartial advice for substance abuse guidance or tech led solutions to common vices, such as e-cigarettes.
- Stress can be born out of frustration with workload and time constraints. Sometimes the solution is as simple as managing time more effectively. Speak to your employees and advise them to block their time into tasks in order to focus on the task at hand. If they’re easily distracted, advise using a ‘distraction blocker’, such as Cold Turkey, so websites that will likely distract can be added to a blacklist
- Wearable tech has flourished with the technological improvement of smart phones. Health is one of the major contributors to the ‘wearable tech boom’, including devices positioned as the next step to stress relief in today’s fast and hectic working culture. Prana is a device, developed through Indiegogo, that not only measures breathing and posture, but alerts when not sitting correctly. Along with this the wearable provides breathing exercises to control.
- At its most severe, stress can lead to episodes akin to a breakdown or panic attack. Breathing in a regular and calming manner is essential in these situations. If your employee has made you aware of being prone to stress and panic attacks, consider investing in a device that can help monitor stress levels. Spire is another wearable device that tracks your stress levels, advising on preventative measures through your smartphone, where it gives a ‘performance breakdown’ that will show the time, place, and factors that led to the increased stress.
Your employees are the most valuable assets in a company, and looking after wellbeing throughout the office is imperative to maintaining productivity. Take preventative measures by talking to employees and encouraging the conversation, rather than waiting until staff are being affected by stress by being pro-active.
Related Articles
