10 Ways to Eliminate Stress in the Workplace

clendar February 10, 2021

clendar 12 minutes

Robert Huges

1451 Users

Can you think of a day when you couldn’t focus on your work and felt like your mind was scattered? Such a stressful day is quite common in our everyday lives. But too much work stress can deteriorate your company’s morale and productivity. Therefore, you have to learn how to eliminate stress in the workplace both as a leader and an employee.

What is workplace stress?

Workplace stress is nothing but a discrepancy between your capabilities and job demands. We all have experienced it at some point in our workplaces. And it can cause damage to both your health and your career. Failure to meet the standards or deadline for any project or being unable to adjust to the workplace environment usually results in workplace stress.

How to Eliminate Stress in the Workplace

To manage workplace stress and ensure that it doesn’t mount up, you can follow these 10 easy steps.

1. Engage with your co-workers

One of the key factors to fulfil the goal of your organization is to ensure employee engagement. This enhances the ability to improve team performance. At the same time, leading the organization to higher lucrativeness.

If your employees find it hard to manage the stress built from either project’s deadlines or lack of stress management skills, it’ll deteriorate their performances. But engaging in a conversation with your colleagues is a great way to reduce your stress in the workplace. Implementation of an employee engagement strategy will increase the overall productivity of your organization. This way you can better understand you and your teammates’ capabilities to be an effective team. After all, a bad synchronization with the teammates will lead to everyone’s stress. Therefore, it’s very important to engage with your employees and teammates to eliminate stress.

Moreover, you shouldn’t hold any grudge against anyone as it’ll always divert your motivation. Take a deep breath. Calm yourself down first, think about the response and then act wisely instead of overreacting.

02. Don’t hold onto your emotions

When you experience negative emotions such as anger and frustrations, don’t react immediately. The outcome of it might not be in your favour. Keeping your negative emotions inside won’t let you concentrate on your work but delay it.

If you don’t feel comfortable working with anyone on your team, your performance and efficiency may go down as well. Instead, talk to your friends or colleagues or supervisors, share your emotions with them. It’ll help you eliminate your stress in the workplace.

03. Build self-confidence

When you always think about other’s perception of you, you’re likely to impose self-stress on yourself. Don’t wait for other’s approval when you’re facing a challenging project. Instead, consider this as an opportunity which will help you get outside your comfort zone to carry through new goals.

Remember, confidence is the key to building and maintaining a quality team. Appreciating your employees for a job well done can boost up their confidence. However, a lack of self-confidence can decrease your ability to succeed. Not having enough skills or experience doesn’t mean you’re going to lose your job. Instead, believing in yourself that with proper determination and hard work, you can find your way out of stressful work situations.

04. Avoid procrastination

Don’t overwhelm yourself with multiple tasks by delaying them day after day. If you struggle to gain enough motivation to start and continue a project, eventually you’ll meet the deadline. So consequently, it’ll put extra stress on your shoulders. The primary reason for procrastination is the fear of failure to complete any task before the deadline. However, some common factors that make us hold up ongoing projects are:

Disinclination for any task. Lack of enthusiasm often leads us to discern a task as frustrating and boring. Hence, we find ourselves procrastinating, leading us to work stress.
Lack of belief on your competence to complete a task can also make you delay to start working on a project.
Perfectionism. If you are concerned about the flawlessness of your work regardless of others’ evaluation, you are more likely to fail to meet the deadline of the project.
Lack of self-control and motivation. When you are exhausted, your mind can be clouded up by demotivating factors like anxiety and dread. And this makes us postpone any ongoing task.
Mulling over or Indecisiveness to properly execute a plan or start doing something.
Low self-esteem can also affect your productivity as you don’t start or work efficiently. Hence, it builds stress.
Underlying depression can lead you to difficulty in concentrating and reduce your interest in work. Thus, it builds up stress at the end of the day.
Finally, Distraction! When you can’t concentrate on your work and your focus keeps shifting away from you, eventually, it’ll add stress at the end of the day.

So, how can you overcome procrastination?

05. Prioritize your work

Not all tasks have equal weights and learning to understand it will minimize your stress in the workplace. To meet the standards set by your company, you need to follow and maintain some strategies. For example, deciding which task should be your first priority to complete based on the deadlines.

You can also make a list of tasks with specific time boundaries for each so that you don’t burden yourself with the stress of multiple tasks at hand. This will help you become more efficient at work without any interruptions. Workplace distractions are quite normal, and you should learn to deal with them so that it doesn’t build stress for you.

06. Ensure a flexible work environment

Nowadays, many organizations allow flexible working hours, team events and even free snacks! If you are overwhelmed with real-life responsibilities or difficulties, it’ll be hard for you to focus on your work. To solve this problem, modern organizations are given their employees the chance to work remotely if necessary. This helps to alleviate the stress in the workplace and ultimately build trust. When your employees feel that you have trust in their competencies, they will perform better.

If your company has multiple teams working from different locations, then set rules and standards to follow. This will let your employees work according to their varying needs but at the same time maintaining a work-life balance.

Working longer hours will not help you succeed. Try optimizing your work will help you ward off your stress. Having a small chat or one-to-one meeting with your employees will provide you with information whether they are experiencing any workplace stress or not.

07. A Place to De-stress

According to a wide body of research, workplace wellness programs ensures benefits for both the employees and the companies. And it’s important for the employers to provide their employees with appropriate programs based on the workplace demographic and condition.
This will enhance the employee’s work performance and help reduce stress.

Such a program may include:

Installing on-site fitness centre. Remember that a healthy employee is more productive than the unfit and stressed out one.
Providing common rooms or meditation areas so that employees can socialize.
Giving your employees enough break time and a chance to relax to wear off the work stress.
Having a kitchen or cafeteria on the premises so that your employees can have snacks or prepare their meal. Providing a few appliances like refrigerator, coffee machine, a microwave will.

08. Increase Social Support

In almost every organization, workplace stress mounts with the increase in productivity for better profitability. Dealing and managing interpersonal relationships within the workplace while maintaining the quality standards of the organization, can be a daunting task.

Providing social support for your organization will increase the ability of your employees to better cope up with their stress in the workplace.

Social support may include the following tasks:

Small group interactions within the teams so that the employees can get the chance to know each other better.
Training for your employees to build up their confidence and the ability to manage their stress better.
Appreciation, recognition and rewarding the employees when they perform well.
Provide your employees with opportunities to grow so that they can deal with their challenges. It will help them excel in their careers.
Assign supervisors for each team who will listen to the problems and stress of every employee and help them overcome it.
Create unity in the workplace by building mutual respect and relationships of trust.
Recommend a stress management program to educate your employees about the skills and techniques required to reduce stress.
Supply your employees with appropriate resources to complete their tasks.

You can also train your employees to become more self-aware of their emotions, stress levels and what triggers them. It’ll also help your employees to better handle their interpersonal challenges such as misunderstandings, conflicts, decision-making etc.

09.Healthy Diet and Exercise

Complexities of modern life and inconvenient workload cause challenges in our daily lives. And stress is one of those challenges that you can get the better of by adopting a healthy lifestyle. When we take too much stress, our body takes its troll and releases Cortisol, the stress hormone along with adrenaline and norepinephrine. These hormones are primarily responsible for increasing the blood pressure, blood sugar levels and heart rate. They also lead us to overeat or stress eating, and make us crave for sweet and high-fat foods.

Another best way to eliminate stress in the workplace is by exercising regularly. When you exercise, your body releases Endorphins also known as the “feel-good” chemicals. They are produced naturally by the central nervous system to stress or pain. Numerous studies have shown that regular exercise can boost our moods and reduce stress in the workplace. Aerobic exercises like brisk walking, swimming, running or cycling will keep your heart rate and circulatory system in proper functioning. And most importantly, get enough sleep so that you can perform better at work. Because sleep deprivation will make you less efficient in your performance and overall productivity.

So, the following 4 easy tasks will ensure your better health along with a stress-free workplace:

10. Provide Paid Time Off

Working too hard and stretching your working hours to make a good impression on yourself will burden you with unmanageable stress. This redundant workload tempts most of the employees to skip their holidays. So consequently, stress levels increase affecting our health badly, diverting our concentration and ultimately damaging your career in the long run.

Therefore, you should take some time off of your work to unwind, refresh and to manifest. Here are some reasons why you should take a break once in a while.

Without proper breaks, you’ll lose your motivation and passion to work effectively.
Hard work and dedication to impress your employer will result in a reduction in productivity.
To escape the monotony of workload.
Taking holiday means spending more time with your friends and family, and it’ll increase
your levels of happiness and welfare.

But for many employees, it can be difficult to manage and ask for time off, especially if it’s their first job. So, you can –

Taking holidays doesn’t always mean it’ll de-stress you. Additionally, it can add an extra layer of stress on your shoulder.

Provide an employee manual to your employees in which they will be provided with information about paid time off, planned time off and personal time off. According to the UK’s holiday entitlement, almost all workers must receive at least an equivalent of 5.6 weeks of statutory paid annual leave.

Ending note

Long-term stress is one of the most daunting obstacles toward your career and your company’s success. And adapting to any situation by eliminating the stress in the workplace can be a challenging obligation. So, plan and make strategies to alleviate workplace stress so that you don’t get burned out ultimately creating a healthy workplace environment.

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