Odds are your team members experience stress during the workday. The changes and challenges related to the way we work and live have significantly increased stress for virtually all employees.

If increased feelings of stress remain unchecked, they can elevate to dangerous levels. This can lead to physical and mental health concerns.

Chronic stress adversely impacts engagement and productivity. This decreases your team’s ability to reach business goals.

Your team members likely will have more frequent absences, make additional mistakes, and experience increased conflict. These actions can lead to burnout and turnover.

This is why you should look for signs of increased stress among your team. Offering support for the underlying issues can help your team members improve their performance.

Discover the impacts of stress on your team’s performance and how you can facilitate effective stress management.

Decreased Job Performance

When team members experience chronic stress, they typically find it difficult to concentrate and manage their time. This makes it hard to focus on the task at hand and meet deadlines.

Experiencing chronic stress can lead to anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. This makes it more difficult for team members to function at work. If they constantly are concerned about their performance, it impacts their productivity.

Chronic stress typically causes team members to become less engaged in their work. This often leads to burnout. As a result, your team members may frequently be absent or decide to change employers.

Increased Conflict

Collaboration can be challenging when team members experience chronic stress. They likely will not find ways to address and resolve conflicts with teammates. The team members likely have limited emotional bandwidth to focus on thoughtful communication. The conflicts can result in decreased productivity.

Unresolved conflict reduces trust among your team. It also can encourage employees to leave your company.

Addressing Employee Support  

Talk with your team about the benefits they have access to that address job-related stress. These wellness initiatives should provide support for mental health.

Remind your team to take frequent breaks. This includes an hour for lunch each day. Promote meditation, reading, or listening to music to relieve stress.

Encourage your team to take walks during their breaks. Fresh air can help reduce stress.

Create a Psychologically Safe Workplace

Encourage your team members to feel comfortable talking about their feelings without judgment. Model the empathetic behavior you want to see.

Candidly talk with your team about their individual and group well-being. You may want to host a lunch-and-learn about stress at work and share some of your own experiences. Or, you might want to have monthly check-ins with your team to talk about their well-being.

Open discussion about how you are doing emotionally encourages your team to talk about how they are feeling. This facilitates effective stress management and support when your team members are struggling.

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