7 Ways Employers Can Reduce Stress in the Workplace

Workplace stress is a big source of day-to-day turmoil for many employees, which is why it’s important employers take an active role to reduce stress.

Even better, you can target specifically each year during Stress Awareness Month in April, helping employees identify issues and hopefully manage or overcome them.

Good business outcomes depend, in part, on employee retention which is another reason why employers can’t afford to ignore the mental health of their employees.

The goal is to find ways to alleviate or remove stressors in the workplace to the greatest extent possible, build coping and resiliency supports, and ensure that people who need help know where to turn. Reducing workplace stress benefits everyone across an organization.

According to OSHA, reducing stressors can:

• Improve morale
• Increase productivity and focus
• Reduce workplace injuries
• Lower sick days, and
• Improve physical health.

All these factors can also lead to reduced turnover among an employer’s workforce.

Why It’s Important for Employers to Reduce Stress

The effects of stress are endless – not only does it affect an employee’s performance, but it also affects their physical and mental health. Chronic stress can lead to many health problems, affecting their ability to work.

Workplace stress is also highly personal. Some people thrive in fast-paced jobs, such as emergency room nurses, police officers and air-traffic controllers — where making a mistake can put people at risk.

The rest of us likely wouldn’t last a day in such high-pressure environments. But that doesn’t mean our jobs don’t have stress.

Every job has its own kind of stress — for instance, short deadlines, endless paperwork or meetings that drag on for hours. All can cause stress.

But it’s not just the job that creates stress. It’s also the way a person responds to the pressures and demands of each workplace that makes them stressed. Not surprisingly, people respond to stress differently. The way they respond depends on their personality and their workplace culture.

Stress Management Actions for Employers

Because employers and the environment they create play a role in an employee’s workplace stress, it’s important you think about ways to help employees manage stress.

The answer isn’t to liberate employees from learning new things, but for them to become more resilient so they can handle challenges and get better at managing workplace stress. 

Here’s a look at eight proven ways companies can help employees manage workplace stress.

1. Establish a Supportive Company Culture

Company culture plays a huge role in how an employee feels when times are good and when they’re difficult. Workplace stress is sometimes fed by fear-based cultures that leave employees:

• anxious about their performance
• ineffective or insufficiently trained leadership
• unmanageable workloads, and
• unaddressed relational issues between colleagues.

On the other hand, a great company culture:

• attracts people who want to work or do business with a company
• inspires employees to be more productive, and
• is positive place to with reduced turnover.

In that sense, who you work with plays a huge role in your mental health and how you’re able to navigate stress.

Good workplace mental health requires a supportive culture that starts from the top down.

Positive sentiments and company values work best when heard from the top executives and frontline managers.

2. Emphasize Work-Life Balance or Integration

Employees leave an average of six paid vacation days unused each year, according to research from Clarify Capital. Why? 44% say they’re saving days “just in case.” Fifteen percent feel guilty about taking time off.

That’s not a healthy balance, unfortunately.

As a part of a supportive workplace culture, it’s important that employers emphasize that work-life balance or integration is important for preserving an employee’s mental health.

Employers can’t expect that employees will always show up to work 100% clear-headed and ready to dive in. Sometimes, there are personal issues employees are dealing with. Sometimes, work is more pressing.

When emphasizing balance, it helps to lead by example. Managers will want to work with them to understand and accept either a work-life integration, which calls for no distinction between the two, or a work-life balance, which separates the two. Help employees find the sweet spot between work-life balance and work-life integration. 

Encourage employees to use their time off. Managers also have a responsibility for pushing the value that time off is important to use, and an employee shouldn’t feel bad about using it.

3. Encourage Workplace Wellness

Sometimes, workplace stress can happen quickly. When it does, it helps to encourage workplace wellness techniques for employees to take advantage of.

Things like deep breathing or going to a private, quiet room to gather themselves can work wonders. Encourage employees to get outside and take a walk. Sometimes the best stress relief is sunshine and time away from the computer. Physical activity is a proven method for stress reduction, and can be done when they work from home, too.

Other ways to reduce stress:

• Read a book
• Listen to a podcast
• Tackle a fun side project
• Create the ultimate break room
• Work on a group puzzle
• Celebrate milestones, or
• Host a wellness gathering.

4. Offer Support on Time Management

Expecting employees to balance a multitude of tasks without hitting burnout is unrealistic. And you want to help them before burnout hits: The Clarify Capital research found that nearly 30% of employees who are burned out consider leaving their jobs.

As a manager, make it a point to understand what your employees’ workloads are and what’s reasonable for them.

Sometimes, time management techniques don’t come easily to employees. Help employees find what methods work best for them by encouraging an open dialogue.

To avoid burnout, it pays to help employees develop these five time management tactics:

• Set reminders for all tasks
• Create a daily planner
• Give each task a time limit
• Block out distractions, and
• Establish a routine.

5. Offer Flexible Work Options

When and where possible, give employees some flexibility in when and where they work. This will also allow them to flex their schedule when they need to, which can help reduce the stress of daily responsibilities outside their day job.

Plus, studies show hybrid and remote work has reduced burnout and turnover.

Here’s the thing: You don’t have to offer fully hybrid schedules — with a few days in the office and some at home — to give the benefits of flexible work. Other flexible options these days include flextirement, new approaches to traditional shift work and unique twists on job sharing.

6. Have Employees Track Stressors

One key to making high performance sustainable is to track stressors, and the causes of stress, in the workplace.

Job stress comes in all shapes and sizes, so it’s best to simply ask employees, through a questionnaire, about their mental health and stress levels.

For example, when employees are asked to take part in an employee survey, they may be asked if they feel low or high demands on themselves at work. They check the box that best corresponds to how they are feeling at the time.

For projects or tasks that significantly impact an employee’s mental well-being and create more job stress than they should, managers should encourage employees to discuss it and be open about it.

With this approach, managers can help their employees figure out how to manage the task and whether it requires additional resources.

Tracking stressors helps find the cause of stress much quicker.

7. Just Listen

When all else fails, sometimes the best thing a manager can do is to be quiet and listen.

Create environments for employees to feel comfortable sharing what’s bothering them. As you do this more frequently and make it a common part of the workplace, employees will open up.

As someone who plays an instrumental role in employees’ well-being, it’s important for managers to approach employees with empathy, especially employees who are struggling.

Sometimes that struggle may have more to do with a worker’s personal life than professional life. But their well-being follows them wherever they go.

Many Benefits to Helping Employees Manage Stress

Employers ignore workplace stress at their own peril. There are many benefits to helping your employees manage workplace stress.

It can improve morale and lead to increased productivity and better focus, fewer workplace injuries, fewer sick days and improved physical health (e.g., lower blood pressure, stronger immune system). All these factors can lead to reduced turnover.