How Do You Manage Stress Related Absence?

How Should We Handle Stress At Work?

Employees’ physical and emotional health and wellness are put under tremendous strain by stress, which affects their behaviour, performance, and relationships with co-workers. Additionally, it’s a significant contributor to extended absences from work, according to 37% of survey participants in the CIPD study on healthcare and well-being at work. Therefore, taking action to control work-related stress is advantageous for both employee well-being and the overall success of your company. Federal employees can get an assessment, short-term counselling, referral, managerial consulting, and coaching services from EAP services, which is open around the clock, every day of the year.

Why Is Stress In The News These Days?

Movements to promote awareness of mental health issues and well-being have gained ground recently. For instance, since 1992, the Mindfulness Meditation Society has promoted April as “Stress Awareness Month.” Society offers organizations and individuals advice regarding the value of well-being and suggests methods to make sure their personnel are more productive and healthy.

What Is Stress, Exactly?

First, a greater comprehension of human biochemistry and the “fight or flight” reaction to stress is required to minimize the effects of stress on our personnel. Since we were hunter-gatherers when our fight-or-flight mechanism equipped us to either flee or defend ourselves physically, our coping strategies haven’t changed much. This means that the majority of us are ill-equipped to cope with the kinds of pressures that exist today (less woolly mammoths). As a consequence, in contemporary workplaces, our fight-or-flight response is triggered when we experience stress related to deadlines or a challenging conversation, for example. This doesn’t assist in these situations, though, and just makes us more anxious. Regularly feeling stressed out might be harmful. Not only has it been discovered that sustained high levels of stress raise the risk of significant cardiovascular problems, but it also affects mental well-being.

Therefore, we must be aware of how stress affects us. The effects of stress aren’t always bad, though. Our attentiveness, capacity to learn and ability to concentrate can all be improved by brief, moderate stress. A small amount of effort can also improve our capacity for persistence when faced with challenges. Nevertheless, when our stress levels exceed this ideal level, we may begin to see adverse impacts on our health. To avoid this, we must create technologies that will assist employees in managing their well-being.

What Are The Top Three Reasons For Stress At Work?

Stress at work is one of the leading causes of both short-term and long-term absences from work, according to the CIPD Health and Wellbeing at Work survey.

According to the survey, these are the top three sources of stress at work:

• Excessive workloads,
• Work-related relationships, 
• Management methods.

You can check a helpful infographic here for a brief explanation of the main conclusions. Some of these results are consistent with our expectations when we consider stress as well as its causes. Conferences also provide us with a new chance to face problems and alter our approach to handling stress at work.

What Obligations Do You Have As An Employer At Work?

The Court of Appeal stated in the case that they expected the employers to take reasonable and appropriate steps to prevent and resolve the issue once they became aware of it. They must take reasonable precautions to avoid physical and emotional harm, which entails being proactive about lowering working stress.

What Actions Can You Take To Lessen Your Work-Related Stress?

• Inform all employees of your absence and well-being rules.
• Track employee attendance and keep an eye out for signs that point to a potential problem that you can solve early on.
• To investigate any concerns that might be management-related, track absenteeism by department and line manager.
• To concentrate your efforts, look at seasonal and departmental trends.
• Provide staff with options like counselling to assist them in dealing with any difficulties early.
• Review workload demands regularly.
• To keep an eye on employee satisfaction, conduct regular assessments and surveys.
• Think about the benefits of a flexible work strategy for your company.
• Focus can be increased with frequent learning and training opportunities.
• Think about offering courses in stress management and mindfulness.
• Make sure your leaders are knowledgeable of the procedure to use if they become aware of a problem.
• Utilize a referral system for occupational health so that staff members can receive assistance as needed.
• A speedy turnaround can be beneficial, which is why we see every occupational recommendation within 5 days.
• Make certain management receives leadership training to aid in fostering relationships at work and lessen stress.

Final Words:

From short-term illnesses to more serious long-term health conditions, employees may require time off for a variety of reasons. To prevent data absences and improper use of sick leave policies, an efficient absence management system should support individuals’ health needs.