Let’s talk about stress
Many companies have taken great steps to make their offices cultures healthier, by including gym access in employee benefits and ensuring that a range of healthy food is served in the office canteen. While beneficial to both mental and physical health, these changes fail to address one of the biggest causes of unhappiness and ill-health among employees, stress.
The mental health of those sat at a desk for the bulk of the week is frequently overlooked. Stress can sometimes be dismissed as ‘part of the job,’ or be seen as a consequence of poor personal organisation. Worse still, stress is occasionally justified as a necessary element of jobs which are highly paid or involve significant responsibility.
Employee after employee spends hours hunched over their desk, stressed about one client or another, before going home and remaining glued to their work e-mail, before falling asleep, waking up, and then checking their work e-mail again. This recurring situation should not be viewed as acceptable, or as a normal part of working in professional services. Such a situation is extremely damaging not only to the individuals concerned but to the productivity of a business as a whole.
Could your team compete with the best in Europe?
If you were the manager of a top football team, would you advise your players to go out partying on the night before a crucial match like the Champions League Final? Obviously, you would not. Allowing your staff to come to work tired and highly stressed, is the same as letting players turn up to matches hungover or turn up to training eating a kebab. In every case, the person you are managing would not perform at an optimal level and your results would decrease.
Successful identification of the causes of stress before they develop into a personal crisis for your employee can save your business thousands of pounds a month, by eradicating stress before it devours hours of working time.
It is crucial that stress management is prioritised by HR departments across the country. Fortunately, the team at Altruist Enterprises spotted this urgent need for stress management training and began travelling around the country, encouraging employers to view employees’ wellbeing as an essential component of their commercial success.
How we help you to retain happy staff
The latest stop on this de-stress tour is the Better Wellbeing, Better Business seminar taking place on Tuesday 1st May from 8.30am-12.30pm as part of the Black Country Business Festival. Please visit our stand to find out how happiness is key to productivity; and on how thinking less about work; and more about life outside the office can have a beneficial effect on employees, employers and the entire workplace community.