4 Ways To Reduce Your Employees’ Stress In The New Normal

The workplace is known to be a major boiling pot of stressors. But things have become extra stressful ever since the pandemic started as employees are contracting COVID and other health concerns, as well as various businesses seeing a massive loss in manpower and pay cuts over the past year. Not to mention, only 37% of the Philippine workforce perceive that they are more productive in a work-from-home setup. With all these stressors and more, employees are in dire need of support from their employers to help them manage these stressful situations and become more resilient in the new normal. For all our employers, here are just some of the things that you can do for your staff during the pandemic:

1.Talk to them about their workload

When your employees are under high amounts of stress, it’s often because they are overwhelmed by a lot of things at work. The best way to approach this is by setting up one-on-one calls to check in on their progress as well as to ask for any specific problems they are encountering with their work. It is worth noting that 59% of employees typically struggle with asking for help, which is why talking to them about their workload will also enable them to seek help from others when their situation calls for it. It’s always better to show concern in this manner because your employees will know that you are open and willing to accommodate their concerns.

2. Improve your sick leave policies

During the pandemic where lots of employees have fallen ill from COVID at varying degrees, they need more time to recuperate and remain in quarantine. For sick leave policies that do not take these into consideration, employees are more likely to feel stressed out about recovering and immediately resuming work. You can help by adjusting your company’s policies on filing for sick leave by allocating them more days, and if possible, even sending them any form of medical support. Doing so can also prevent income loss for your employees.

3. Evaluate whether your current team set-up is still appropriate

It’s always important to assess your team’s situation and whether your current system in the workplace still works for everyone. You can conduct a survey that asks about your organization design, the flow of work, certain schedules, and other concerns as this helps ease your employees’ work, remove pressure and unrealistic expectations, and reduce their stress.

4. Always express kindness to your employees

A study published in the Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities emphasized the reduction of stress and anxiety through positive reinforcement. Recognize their efforts by giving commendations on their outputs. When your employees are struggling, reassure them that they are doing the best they can with all their current limitations in place. For any areas of improvement on their part, always be kind when correcting them or giving feedback.

The workplace is a very crucial environment for an employee. If this environment that they frequently immerse themselves in does not show the appropriate support for them during the most stressful times in history, you could expect a lot of burnt out and mentally distressed employees leaving your organization. Which is why as an employer, you should always try to apply the necessary interventions to help reduce your staff’s stress and improve their overall performance.