If you are unsure about the overall mental health of your office, it might be beneficial to know the treacherous fact that stress is costing the United States about $300 billion per year. This number is derived from the number of stress-related illnesses and injuries from accidents, how many days employees are absent from work, the percentage of employee turnover, and the decrease rate of work productivity.
61% of Americans say that their work is a stressor and that their company or workplace is not following the proper path to promote positive mental health. This creates a huge red flag, as companies should understand that if their employees are not happy, their profits will show a correlation.
Employers have employees on assistance programs (EAPs) that are created to help with the stress that employees face on a daily basis. Even though most companies implement EAPs, surprisingly, the utilization of EAPs from employers is less than 5%. The largest issue of why employees are not using these resources to boost mental health is because they see these efforts as a last resort, rather than helpful for everyday use.
There are signs to look for in employees to be wary of such as physical symptoms like headaches and stomachaches, to emotional symptoms such as irritability and worry. Be cautious and look for these signs to see if you need to take action.
Sources of Stress to Avoid
Knowing the factors that could be causing the stress are incredibly important too, in order to be able to avoid these pressures employees in your workplace are potentially facing. Check the list before to make sure you avoid these stressors:
Low salary – money is one of the highest sources of stress since most workers are taking care of more than just themselves. Making sure your employee feels secure with their finances is critical in order for them to work productively.
Excessive workload – Quality over quantity has been repeated many times but still remains to be true. Make sure to assign the appropriate amount of work per employee and do not be afraid to onboard another employee if needed.
Limited growth opportunity – not having levels in which your employee to grow into causes frustration and disappointment. Your employee should know that there are ways for him or her to grow into something better, to avoid feeling stuck.
Unchallenging work – Of course, there are mindless tasks that need to get done in the workplace, but rather than assigning all these tasks to one person, make sure to spread them out through the whole team. That way, each employee feels like their work is significant to the company as a whole.
Lack of peer support – Developing a company culture allows each employee to feel that they belong to the company. Each employee deserves to feel supported by the team they work with in order to work to expected standards.
No control over decisions– Not allowing your employees to have a say in projects or the company, in general, closes the employee off, including from assigned work. Allowing the workplace to be open for any opinion engages your employees.
Unclear expectations – Avoiding holding meetings with each employee leads to confusion and frustration from not understanding the direction of the company. For small companies, meet with each employee one on one. For larger companies, have overhead managers check in with each individual employee.
Avoiding the above stressors is a great start to having your company head into a better direction and swerve away from the costs of stress in the workplace. Check out Credit.com’s guide on 7 ways to reduce stress in the workplace to improve even further as a company!
Courtesy of Credit.com
