Decreasing Stress In The Office

Stress in the workplace can have a huge impact on employee health. When people are under a great deal of stress they are not as productive and the entire morale of the organization is going to struggle. It is important that you focus on managing stress in the office if you want to have any hope of boosting productivity and keeping your employees happy and healthy. Here are some tips to decrease stress in the office:

Tip # 1- Keep It Light
When it comes to employee morale and stress issues you have to look at the overall environment in the office. You need to keep the mood in the office light and happy and to ensure your staff is having fun. While you want them to work hard, they are not going to have much of a chance if the stress is always pressing down on them and they never feel like they can get a break. Walk by your employees offices once and while and crack a joke. Make the office friendly and happy for everyone. When people can relax a little bit, their stress level will go down tremendously.

Tip # 2 - Watch For Burnout
As a manager it is your job to walk around and check on your employees. You need to stop by and chat with them for a minute or two and see how they are doing. Look for signs of burnout. Here are some common signs of burnout to be aware of:
- Employees who come to work late all the time
- Employees that call in sick often
- Employees that are irritable toward their co-workers
- Employees that do not seem happy or fulfilled in their jobs
- Employees that seem tired at work often
- Employees that miss deadlines all the time

Typically burnout arises when employees have been dealing with long-term stress in the workplace. Managers may pile too many job duties on their employees and they do not hire additional employees to come in and help with the workload. It is vital to your organizations productivity that you focus on watching for the signs of burnout and doing what you can in order to help your employees manage stress in the office.

Tip # 3 - Encouragement
Do you set goals with your employees? How often do you have meetings with them and talk about their work and what you can do to help them? You need to continue encouraging your employees to work hard and to bring out the best in them. Set monthly goals with them as well as quarterly and yearly goals. Some of the goals you set may start with things like how to complete their work on time but it could also include setting future goals if they would like to move up with the company someday. When you take time to sit down and really work on encouraging your staff and motivating them to get better at their jobs. Not only will your employees love their jobs but they will also respect you more as a manager if you are working hard to encourage them and to keep them motivated in their jobs.

Tip # 4 - Remove The Toxic Behaviors
It is important to take time to focus on identifying things in the office that can really wear down employee morale. When you have employees that are belittling one another or employees that are harassing each other, you have to jump in right away. Toxic attitudes and behaviors like this cannot be tolerated and you need to make sure you are removing them from the workplace right away.