9 Steps to Making Your Workplace Stress-Free

July 27, 2016

Health

Here you’ll learn 9 steps to making your workplace stress-free.

Step 1. Define job roles and responsibilities.

You want to define working hours, shift patterns, rest breaks, responsibility, and authority so that everybody in the organization knows what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it and who they’re supposed to report to so there’s no ambiguity because ambiguity can be a big source of stress.

Step 2. Be realistic.

You have ensured that workloads are in line with workers’ capabilities and resources so that people can do what’s expected of them. It’s also well to make sure that employees had the tools and resources that they need to do a good job so you don’t want someone to paint a big wall with a toothbrush – you want to make sure that they have a nice big paint brush to paint the wall.

You want to make sure there’s fair remuneration. Low salaries and poor benefits only add to the stress of working if you’re working every hour that there is but you’re not making ends meet that can be very stressful. So you want to make sure that people have the right amount of money to do the job properly.

And of course, when people think they’re being taken advantage of then this can be stressful and demotivating. Like if people are working very hard but you are not looking after them properly then they think “why should I bother?”
You want to find ways to include alternative benefits and perks if you can’t afford to pay a big salary. For example lots of large corporations have sports facilities or they might just throw a decent Christmas party with lots of food that employer doesn’t have to pay for, it can go a long way and it doesn’t actually cost a great deal when you compare what you’re going to get out of it at the end of the day.

But also you should pay people what they’re worth to your enterprise – don’t be a cheapskate or a skinflint boss. Make sure that the amount of money that you pay them is proportionate to the amount of income that they generate for your enterprise.

Step 3. Communicate.

You should communicate clearly and unambiguously.

You want to tell people what they need to know to do their jobs efficiently – don’t leave out some crucial piece of information that they’re going to need to know because if they don’t know it they can do the job entirely wrong and then they’re going to have to go back and start all over again and that can be very stressful.

You also want to make sure that people are kept “in the loop” with what they need to know so that if there are some sort of a development takes place then people know what’s going on so that they can make adjustments accordingly.
You also want to make criticism constructive – don’t simply shout “ah, you’re doing this all wrong”. What you want to do is make some sort of constructive criticism – “if you did this that way it would be more efficient”. Remember that communication is a two-way street so you want to make sure that you get plenty of feedback from your team so that you can change the way that you do things to make things more efficient. So that becomes less stressful for you as well as for the people that are working for you.

Step 4. Be proactive.

Like I’m just saying in the last point communication is a two-way street. So when you find that there’s something coming back that’s negative you want to nip any problems in the bud. You want to make sure that a negative feedback is handled quickly because making people’s lives easier can make your life easier by return.

Step 5. Career development.

There can be nothing more soul destroying than working for a company and knowing that you’re doing your job and you’re going to be doing that for the entire time that you work for this company, you want to move on in your career and suddenly you’re going to have to go somewhere else, that can be very stressful and demotivating.

Bear in mind that your best business asset is your people so you want to support career goals by offering development programs and you can offer educational support to key employees so they can then bring their expertise to the newly acquired knowledge to bear to help build your business. And when employees know where their career is going they tend to be happier and more committed.

Of course, if you’re an entrepreneur then you want to invest in your own personal development and you want to keep up with the latest ideas so that you can take your business forward to the next level.

Step 6. Give credit where it’s due.

When people perform beyond what’s expected of them recognizing their efforts makes them feel appreciated. So if you’re happy with the way someone is doing their job a pat on the back either physical or metaphorical can go a long way.

And when someone comes up with a good idea you want to make sure that others know it came from them and not from you. There’s nothing more stressful and frustrating than doing a job and somebody else takes the credit for it.

Step 7. Socializing.

When you encourage employees to socialize out of hours, it helps to form bonds and create a working “family”.
The sense of belonging is very important. It binds people together and that’s going to cut down on staff turnover. Encourage employees to socialize out of hours maybe through a good Christmas party that can help to bind things together and help people to think of the company as more just somewhere to go to work.

Step 8. Have a good work/life balance.

You want to establish work schedules that are compatible with the demands and responsibilities that your employees are going to have outside of the job because there’s nothing more stressful than having to try and balance family life and your working life.

Where possible establish flexible work schedules, telecommuting and other remote methods of getting the job done. The end result of all this is you have employees who are happy, healthy and committed to the organization. And when you cut down on the levels of stress, of course, you’re going to have a much lower turnover of employees. That means you don’t have to have all the expense of going out and hiring someone to fill the job from someone who’s quick because they’ve simply found the job too stressful.

Step 9. Innovate.

You want to keep abreast of the latest ideas and you want to encourage employee input. Make your business one that people want to work in because it’s interesting and exciting and you’ll find that the employee stress levels go right down. Or if they don’t it’ll be stress levels of good stress rather than stress levels of bad stress. Remember – a happy workforce is a more productive workforce.