13 Stress Reducers & Profit Boosters
The United Nations declares workplace stress to be
a worldwide epidemic. In the United States alone,
forty-six percent of workers report that their job
is very stressful. This adds up to a million stress
related workplace absences each day.
Individual stress control techniques are important.
Meditation, soothing music, biofeedback, and other
techniques work well to help people cope with the
stress of our modern workplace.
The real solution, however, is to recognize that
stress control is a leadership responsibility.
Leaders and managers can do more to control stress
than all of the individual stress relief techniques
combined. Leaders who implement stress control
strategies see the results in reduced absenteeism,
medical costs, health care insurance expenses,
workers comp payments, accidents, complaints, and
so on.
The following 13 stress control strategies
minimize costs such as these and productivity
soars. The workplace is improved. Employees and
their families are happier. Business owners make
more money.
Management can control stress by:
++ Eliminating unreasonable expectations
++ Positioning people in jobs that use their
skills and abilities
++ Adjusting pay for the level of responsibility
assigned to individuals
++ Correcting vague and arbitrary promotion
policies
++ Including employee in making decisions that
affect their jobs
++ Avoiding excessive overtime, even if there is
additional compensation
++ Distributing unpleasant tasks fairly
++ Enforcing policies equally throughout the
organization, from top to bottom
++ Implementing problem-solving strategies and
acceptable mediation of conflicts
++ Using family stress control strategies to
minimize the impact of family separation
caused by travel or long office hours
++ Demonstrating concern for employee welfare
++ Eliminating or minimizing intolerable conditions
such as temperature, hazards, noise, light, and
odors
It is difficult to remove some of these stressors
when the competition is attacking your company or
when you are faced with unfavorable economic conditions,
but this challenge is just as important as anything else
facing those who wear the mantle of leadership.
Making all of these changes can seem overwhelming.
However, you can make an impact by selecting a single
strategy and making a plan to improve it.
Just as corporate leaders are responsible for
maximizing performance and increasing net profits,
they are also responsible for controlling
stressors that affect the bottom line.
To learn more about stress reducing strategies,
send for f*ree auto responder about the top ten
causes of workplace stress –
toptenstressors@couragebuilders.com
Dale Collie – professional speaker, former
US Army Ranger, CEO, and a Fast Company top
50 innovative leader. Author of “Winning
Under Fire.” (McGraw-Hill) collie@couragebuilders.com
