Work and stress seem to have a lot in common. When researchers asked people how workplace stress had affected them, they found that “21% had called in sick to avoid work”, while “14% had resigned” and “42% had considered resigning”, all due to stress alone.
While many factors contribute to work-related stress, some common causes include:
- Feeling like we’re under a lot of pressure or going through big changes.
- Lacking support or having poor relationships with managers.
- Having little or no control over a situation.
- Feeling overloaded with responsibilities and workload.
Some of us might argue that stress is a natural symptom of a fast-paced and successful workplace. We might have even heard of people who claim to function better at work under stress, even thrive off it.
But others might not see it so positively. Hospitalisation from stress-related illnesses in the UK costs billions annually in healthcare and work absences, not to mention the pain and suffering experienced by people and their families. However, just because stress and work appear to have an intrinsic link, does that make it acceptable?
Getting to grips with the stress crisis
As much as we might love our role and company, any one of us can encounter a stressful period at work. While mental health support schemes and in-house counsellors are becoming more commonplace, these often feel more like reactionary than preventative measures.
Good progress has been made on this front, with the Government offering a nationwide support service. However, employees deserve more than tools designed to improve stress at crisis point. We need to focus on fighting to prevent the underlying causes.
Connecting the dots between these causes – pressure and change, lack of control and support, and overload – we can start to piece together the solution. For company owners, heads of department, managers, and most importantly, the workforce, the answers sit within the sphere of learning and development (L&D).
Leaning into learning and development
With Stress Awareness Month just around the corner, HR and People departments nationwide are scrambling to think up schemes and workshops aimed at helping their employees alleviate stress. But could L&D departments play a crucial role in this too?
Surveys and research by Gartner found that 70% of employees have not mastered the skills they need for their jobs today. Without the correct skills, it becomes impossible to cope with pressure, change and overwhelming volumes of work. With this in mind, empowering employees through training can help to prevent stress.
At the moment, some employees are left playing catch-up without having learned proper processes. This can lead to a loss of confidence, working extra hours to complete tasks, or struggling to keep up with workloads. Over time, these hairline fractures to our psyche can turn into deep furrows in our wellbeing.
To solve this, implementing a strong L&D culture from day one allows staff to grow, learn and feel confident. Learning new skills is even one of the five steps to mental wellbeing recommended by the NHS. As well as improving stress levels at work, learning is a way of:
- Boosting self-confidence and raise self-esteem.
- Helping people to build a stronger sense of purpose.
- Allowing people to connect and share with others.
However, companies do not need to dive headfirst into a wide-ranging L&D programme, as this could overwhelm staff even further. A hugely important point in mastering this process is streamlining and personalising the training on offer. Ask them what training they need to succeed. Make sure everything on offer is bespoke, relevant, and valuable – this is not a tick-box exercise.
Investing in L&D for management also aids a ‘trickle-down’ effect to the staff they lead. Effective training not only improves a manager’s skills in helping staff thrive (as they know the processes inside out) but can also extend to mental health and wellbeing itself. Championing managers to take on training to become mental health first-aiders, with an astute eye for noticing the first signs of stress, is yet another facet of L&D adding value for employees on multiple levels.
With this elevated sense of support from managers, we’re more likely to feel comfortable opening up about concerns in other aspects of work. In turn, employees will no longer feel the need to bottle up work-related stress, breaking the chain of ongoing causes.
Now is the time to reconsider exactly what L&D contributes to a workplace. Gone are the days of handing out company-branded stress balls in employee welcome packs – support and empowerment via well-structured training is the tool we need to get a firm grip on.
