How to avoid stress in the workplace

Demands

Ensure there are sufficient resources (people with appropriate skills, and equipment) to do the work allocated.

• If people are underloaded, think about giving them more responsibility, but make sure that they have been adequately trained.
• Develop personal work plans to ensure staff know what their job involves.
• Identify training and development needs.
• Train staff appropriately so they are able to do their jobs.
• Encourage staff to use all their skills, providing opportunities to do so as far as possible.
• Encourage staff to raise concerns.
• Develop a system to notify employees of unplanned tight deadlines and any exceptional need to work long hours.
• Talk to your team regularly about what needs to be done.
• Ensure that the work environment is appropriately designed and laid out to ensure that staff are able to do their jobs efficiently and without harm to themselves or others.
• Ensure that there is a health and safety policy in place and that risks to health safety of employees are identified and controlled.
• Ensure that risk of physical violence and verbal abuse are assessed and controlled. Take steps to deal with this in consultation with employees and others who can help (e.g. the police, charities).

Control

Consult staff on decisions that affect their jobs.

• Give more control to staff by enabling them to plan their own work; make decisions about how that work should be completed and how problems should be tackled (e.g. through project meetings, one-to-ones, performance reviews).
• Enrich jobs by ensuring that staff are able to use various skills, and that staff can understand how their work fits into the wider aims of the organisation.
• Enable staff to choose their hours/working arrangements where possible to enable a better work-life balance.

Support

• Encourage staff to share their concerns at an early stage, through the line management and alternative routes (e.g. HR, Occupational Health, health and safety representatives)
• Hold regular liaison/team meetings to discuss team pressures.
• Include 'work-related stress/emerging pressures' as a standing item of staff meetings and/or performance reviews and hold more regular one-on-ones to discuss individual work plans.
• Give support and encouragement to staff, even when things go wrong.
• Value diversity - don't discriminate against people on grounds of race, sex or disability or other irrelevant reasons.
• Consult with staff about preferred mechanisms for raising issues.

Relationships

Create a culture where members of the team trust each other and feel they are fairly treated.

• Encourage your staff to recognise the individual contributions of other team members and the benefits of the whole team pulling together.
• Encourage good communication and provide appropriate training to aid skill development (e.g. people management, listening skills, confidence building).
• Select or build teams which have the right blend of expertise and experience.
• In consultation with staff and their representatives, draw up effective policies, including procedures to reduce or eliminate harassment and bullying.
• Agree and implement a confidential reporting system to enable the reporting of unacceptable behaviour.

Role

• Make sure your staff have a clearly defined role, e.g. through a personal work plan which enables them to understand exactly what their roles and responsibilities are.
• Agree specific standards of performance for jobs and individual tasks and review periodically.
• Introduce or revise job descriptions to help ensure that the core functions and priorities of the post are clear.
• Hold team meetings to enable team members to clarify their role and discuss any possible role conflict.
• Hold regular one-to-one meetings to ensure that individuals are clear about their role and know what is planned for the coming months.
• Make sure that new staff receive a comprehensive induction. If this is not arranged centrally, you should do it locally.
• If your organisation has gone through change, check with members of your team to make sure they understand their new roles and are comfortable with them.
• Ensure mechanisms are in place for individuals to raise concerns about their roles and responsibilities.

Change

• Ensure all staff are aware of why the change is happening - agree and implement a system for doing this.
• If the organisation is planning a major change your staff are likely to be discussing job security, whether they will need to relocate, and whether their terms and conditions will change. Explain what the organisation wants to achieve and why it is essential that the change takes place - explain the timetable for action and what the first steps are going to be. Talk about what the change will mean in terms of day-to-day activity and discuss whether there are any new training needs.
• Face-to-face communication is generally best so that people have the opportunity to ask questions and say what they feel.
• Have an open-door policy where staff can talk to you about their concerns or any suggestions they have for improving the way change is managed.
• Involve staff in discussions about how jobs might be developed and changed and in generating ways of solving problems.
• Ensure that support is provided for staff that are affected by change.
• Revise your risk assessment/action plans to see if any changes, for example a decrease in staff numbers, have resulted in increased hazards to staff.

Reward and contribution

• Review salaries on a regular basis using a fair and open system. Communicate plans for pay reviews and outcomes and explain why increases cannot be made if this is the case.
• Discuss and involve staff in the development of the benefits package, find out what would make a real difference to them. Improved reward does not necessarily mean increased salaries - consider annual leave entitlement, flexible working, childcare provision, pensions, social events, provision of leisure facilities/membership.
• Provide employees with feedback on performance when they do a job well. Create a culture where there is regular informal feedback from managers and colleagues. Lead by example by setting up a more formal system of feedback from senior management to individual employees/teams who have performed well.
• Ensure that the contribution of every individual is valued. Make sure that all staff are involved in consultation exercises and communication of information. Don't forget those who work shifts, part-time hours, away from the main site/location, home-workers, 'non-technical' staff.

Indicators

• Monitor sickness absence figures, breaking this down to identify mental-health related absence. Ensure there is an effective absence management procedure in place, including return to work interviews. Take appropriate action if the absence is work-related.
• Monitor employee turnover, establishing the reasons for resignation through exit interviews. If people are leaving due to work issues the chances are they are affecting others too.
• Monitor sickness presence. Do staff come to work when they are not well enough to work? Establish the reasons for this, as it may be a sign of 
  under resourcing.