Stress at work?
Cut sickness
No less than one third of all accidents at work are caused by stress, depression and burn-outs. The job itself often appears to be the cause of these health problems. That’s why, as an employer, it’s a good idea to be informed about stress at work and to offer tips and tools to your employees. If you succeed in reducing stress on the shop floor and this will impact on absenteeism.
Stress management
Check out Stress Management Society (http://www.stress.org.uk) a non-profit making organisation dedicated to helping people tackle stress. It offers dozens of fact sheets, audio files and mind maps. In addition, there’s an online Stress Coaching Tool (£15 a year). After entering some basic information about your current health, you will receive tailored advice on what goals to aim for and how to get there. You can download your personalised menu plans and exercise diary to help you along. You can access the online library of articles about all aspects of your health and how to improve it. And you can use practical tools, like food and exercise calorie calculators, health data sheets and progress charts.
Another helpful site is Stress Management from MindTools (http://www.mindtools.com/smpage.html), it offers a wide range of information, tips and tools for dealing with stress in a working environment. Topics include understanding stress and identifying its causes, plus Stress at Work information such as overload, problem jobs, problem people and your environment. The Stress Defence section covers topics such as building defences, performance stress, think stress away, relaxation techniques and avoiding or recovering from burn-out. Additionally, you might want to check out Work-Life Solutions (http://www.the-stress-site.net/free-stress-tools.html) and its Work-Related Stress Indicator tool (plus manual) and Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool. The site also offers lots of useful resources and free wellbeing tools, such as the Stress Costs and ROI Tool, which helps to calculate the cost of mental ill health and stress and the likely savings if your organisation takes positive action.
Stress busting
Stressbusting.co.uk (http://www.stressbusting.co.uk) has a wide range of stress and health-related articles, also covering Workplace Stress, complemented with information on (alternative) therapies, advice from experts and an extensive online stress test using a questionnaire. Tip. There’s also a list of the 55 Best Stress-Busting Tips of All Time (http://ririanproject.com/2007/11/05/55-best-stress-busting-tips-of-all-time/), a useful bookmark for yourself and your employees. Finally, you will also find plenty of articles and background information in the Stress section of the NHS (http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/Pages/understanding-stress.aspx).
Think of the health professionals!
The above-mentioned sources of information and tools are definitely worth a try, but you should be aware that they can never replace a specialist doctor or psychologist. So when you notice any problems, it’s best to call in the help of suitably qualified health professionals.