Workplace stress is staggeringly costly to business. More than 500,000 workers per year suffer from stress, leading to more than 12 million working days lost per annum.

Good stress management is, therefore, a core aspect of maintaining productivity and positivity in the workplace. Though stress cannot be entirely avoided, every business can implement effective practices that will reduce the impact of stress on its invaluable workforce.

Here are several simple steps you can take to manage and relieve stress at work.

Identify the stressors

Keep track of the stress-inducing challenges that you encounter, or approach employees who you believe may be affected. Carrying out anonymous questionnaires is a good way of encouraging honest, detailed feedback from people who may be concerned about coming forward – don’t forget that discussing stress can be very stressful itself!

According to the UK’s Health and Safety Executive, there are six major causes of workplace stress. Each one will affect different people, of different ages and capabilities, in a number of ways. Subsequently, there’s no ‘one-size fits-all’ solution to tackling stress – but identifying where it comes from is the first step in relieving the strain of stress.

Be mindful in stress management

Certain individuals are likely to suffer more from workplace stress than others. You may have already identified this from periods of absence, illness, discreet conversations, or occupational health assessments.

However, it’s important for other employees that all efforts to alleviate stress aren’t focused on one individual. Others may perceive it to be favouritism – and the individual receiving treatment could even become more stressed as a result of resentment from other employees.

Stress management throughout the workplace is likelier to be effective if positive practices are employed for everyone. Mindfulness is an effective stress management skill that can be learned by anyone and makes for a great topic in team-building meetings.

When held regularly, these meetings give employees the opportunity to discuss the critical moments when they feel most stressed, which helps to identify where additional support may be required.

Provide the right support

Encouraging employees to cope better with stress is imperative, but so is providing any help they need in order to relieve it yet further. With workload, targets and support all factors that can influence the proliferation of stress in the workplace, it’s unavoidable that extra training and coaching will be required at some point in the future.

Some employees – sales staff, for instance – will undoubtedly operate in a more target-driven environment, with exciting peaks and stressful troughs. Predicting these less productive times can be great for booking in additional training. Employees will benefit from new learning, while they can also actively alleviate their current stress by learning from sales training experts.

Would you like to relieve stress in your workplace by providing employees with exceptional quality training? At Impel Dynamic, we not only deliver the programme but also ensure that it is successfully implemented in your workplace. Contact us today to discover how our approach to workplace training will benefit you and your employees.