Are Any of Your Staff Close to ‘Breaking Point’ Because of Stress?

Most of us assume that we’re pretty switched-on when it comes to colleagues at work. Many of us have good relationships with co-workers, exchanging chatter, jokes and what you’ll be doing over the weekend as part of a normal working day. However, what we don’t always realise is when the ‘norm’ may be eroding away.

Things can change gradually, or seemingly not at all – some people are much better at concealing stress up than others, whether it be out of embarrassment, fear or not wishing to kick up a fuss.

Therefore, it’s important that employers and team members be sufficiently versed in spotting signs of stress amongst the workforce. After all – it’s better to prevent a problem than having to deal with its effects, and happy workers – for the most part – are productive workers.

Spotting the warning signs of stress

It’s easy to miss the warning signs of stress in others, as often we’re more wrapped up in our own affairs than we’d like to admit. Therefore, it’s best to keep an eye on what the normal behaviour of colleagues is. Are they usually chatty, upbeat, jocular? Etc.

Signs they may be struggling could be any one or more of the following, but by no means limited to:

• Poor timekeeping
• Working increasingly longer hours with little or no increase in output
• Uncharacteristic emotional outbursts
• Avoiding conversation or banter, isolating or withdrawing from interaction
• Making more errors than usual
• Absent-mindedness/forgetfulness
• Missed deadlines/poor quality of work
• Unusual tiredness – perhaps mentioning not sleeping well or sleeping far too much.

All these factors are subject to a colleague’s normal behaviour, of course. If your colleague is normally short-tempered, you may be looking for more (or less!) extreme behaviour. Whatever may appear odd to someone who knows someone a little better than a casual acquaintance. Unusual or out-of-character behaviour is what to be on the lookout out for.

Causes of Stress in the Workplace

It may be a complete shock to a colleague or employer that a worker is suffering from the effects of stress or even depression, but in all cases it is beneficial to try and get back to the root of the cause. Is some hitherto-unknown bullying taking place? Are unreasonable demands being set upon them by another team? These are just two possible reasons.

Here are six of the most prominent factors which could lead to stress at work if left unchecked:

• Demand – Tight deadlines with the inability to meet them, feeling overwhelmed by volume of work or external pressures in the workplace.
• Support – A worker may feel unsupported or uninformed about what must be done and what their output requires to carry out successfully.
• Control – The feeling of being out of control with work or not knowing how to carry out specific tasks confidently.
• Change – Factors within the workplace changing and the feeling of disengagement or being stranded and overlooked during a transitional period with the business, etc.
• Relationships – A supportive colleague may have left, bullying , demanding too much of a particular member of staff, ongoing creative disagreements etc.
• Role – A role may have suddenly shifted, or the member of staff doesn’t fully understand their remit or who they are now answerable to.

How Stress Threatens Business

Besides the strain of prolonged absence, stress can greatly affect productivity of an individual, team or entire workforce. The HSE reports that 12.5 million working days were wasted between 2017 and 2017 thanks to stress, anxiety and depression.

As a result, the knock-on effect can be that remaining staff are expected to ‘pick up the slack’ of their absent colleague, leading to resentment, stress on the rest of the workforce and disengagement from having to pick up unfamiliar tasks.

The ultimate loss to the company may be the stressed individual leaving altogether, which takes with them knowledge, expertise and any relationships built with other teams, colleagues and organisations.

Therefore, identification of the employee’s difficulties and how to tackle them at the root of the problem is essential to the benefit of both business and worker.

Managing Workplace Stress

Fortunately, there are ways to limit the number of factors that could lead to employees suffering from excessive stress. Here are a few examples:

• Provide training with clear instruction and time to learn it properly for any given role or responsibility
• Make your staff feel welcomed and wanted, and encourage an ‘open door’ policy of always being available to discuss problems
• Workstation assessments to ensure that staff have all the tools they need to do the job, and a comfortable, safe environment in which to do so.
• Conduct wellbeing surveys and ask how staff are feeling about their environment and their work/life balance.
• Promote wellbeing initiatives and offer ways for staff to seek help or information about good workplace health

Taking the time to recognise and address situations or cases which may lead to stress and preventing them from spiralling out of control, and actively observing staff and colleagues for any unusual behaviour is key. Proper stress management measures could prevent absence and unhappiness, and maintain productivity and a healthy working environment for all.

Nobody should reach breaking point because of stress.

Further reading

Check our exhaustive yet easy-to-digest guide to stress in the workplace, written by our Psychiatric Injury team.

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Article by Stuart Jones