Managing Workplace Pressures

How should organisations manage the pressures currently experienced by their employees in a changing workplace culture?

 

Tackling stress in the workplace can be done on three levels.

 

These levels are also known as primary, secondary and tertiary prevention.

 

1. Primary prevention

Eliminating sources of stress in the work environment

Possible strategies to reduce workplace stress factors include:

• Redesigning tasks
• Redesigning working environments
• Establishing flexible work schedules
• Encouraging participative management styles
• Including the employee in career development
• Analysing work roles and establishing goals
• Providing social support
• Building more cohesive teams
• Establishing fair employment policies
• Sharing rewards

Every workplace is different and so conducting a stress audit can help an organisation to identify where to concentrate its efforts in reducing sources of stress.

The Health and Safety Executive has developed a set of management standards for work-related stress. The Management Standards represent a set of conditions that reflect high levels of health, well-being and organisational performance. Following the advice on their website will enable you to identify the gap between your current performance and these conditions. It will also help you to develop your own solutions to close this gap.

www.hse.gov.uk/stress/standards

 

2. Secondary prevention

Increasing awareness and improving the stress management skills of the individual

Individual factors can alter or modify the way employees, exposed to workplace stress, perceive and react to their environment. Each individual has his or her own personal stress threshold, which is why some people thrive in a certain setting and others suffer.

Samaritans’ WorkLife program provides practical skills for your managers or team members to deal with difficult people-based situations.

The training is based on core Samaritans principles that we use throughout these courses to help your people better manage their own experience at work.

WorkLife uses a series of fictional characters to enable participants to explore challenging situations at work without having to disclose their own experiences. Learn more about Samaritans' training courses

Awareness activities and skills training programmes, designed to improve relationship techniques, cognitive coping skills and work/lifestyle modification skills (e.g. time management courses or assertiveness training), have an important part to play in extending the individual's physical and psychological resources.

It is very important organisations recognise that whilst improving individual's ability to handle stress is an important step, this should be complemented with a systems level approach i.e. primary prevention, if the sources of stress are to be addressed.

3. Tertiary prevention

Treatment, rehabilitation and recovery process of individuals who have suffered, or are suffering, from serious ill health as result of stress

Intervention at the tertiary level typically involves provision of counselling services for employee problems in the work or personal domain. Such services are provided either by in-house counsellors or outside agencies, which provide counselling, information and/or referral to appropriate treatment and support services. There is evidence to suggest that counselling is effective in improving the psychological well-being of employees and has considerable cost benefits.

Counselling can be particularly effective in helping employees deal with workplace stress that cannot be changed. It can also help non work-related stress (e.g. bereavement, marital breakdown etc) which tends to spill over into work life.

The role of managers and team members in supporting individuals at work should not be underestimated. Equipping people with the knowledge and skills to be able to support one another doesn’t replace the need for counselling services but it can create a more robust and healthy workforce.

Samaritans training courses equip managers and staff with the skills and confidence to have short conversations about emotional health issues before problems escalate and perhaps lead to a long-term absence. By supporting each other in this way we can help to develop emotionally healthy and productive working environments. Learn more about Samaritans' effective communication courses.