Stress in the workplace

2nd August, 2021

smellings

Wellbeing

Supporting our teams

Stress isn’t always a bad thing, sometimes a little bit of stress can help you stay focussed, energised, and able to meet the many challenges within the workplace. However, in today’s hectic world, workplace stress can sometimes seem overwhelming and lead to emotional, physical, and mental distress. When stress exceeds your ability to cope, it stops being helpful and starts causing damage to your body and your mind. It’s before we reach this point that we must act on it, and look after ourselves and our colleagues.

It’s a fine balancing act, and one we want to support our colleagues with. We have recently launched a brand new management of stress at work policy which looks to support colleague wellbeing and eliminate as much stress as possible. The policy builds on the great work the organisation is already doing and pulls together the practices, and support available all into one place. We recognise that it isn’t an illness in itself but that it can be a major contributing factor in many physical and mental illnesses. Stress on its own can also result in the poor mental health of teams even if the effects are not severe enough to result in a medical diagnosis. Connexus recognises the need to promote a culture of good mental and physical health in its duty of care under the requirement of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

What is stress?

Most people feel stressed sometimes and some people find stress helpful or even motivating. But sometimes stress can take over your life. Stress itself is usually a reaction to mental or emotional pressure. It's often related to feeling like you're losing control over something, but sometimes there's no obvious cause. When you're feeling anxious or scared, your body releases stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol.

Stress isn’t just limited to work related stress but can manifest itself in many forms and for many reasons within your life e.g. work, home life, financial worries, relationship difficulties. Connexus can’t help with home life stress, but is committed to working with colleagues to disperse and eliminate work related stress as much as possible.

Common causes of work related stress

There are many factors within a workplace environment that may lead to work-related stress. These include:

Fear for job security e.g. being made redundant
Overtime, pressures of working more hours
Deadlines looming, Pressure to perform to meet rising expectations but with no increase in job satisfaction
Pressure to work at optimum levels, at all times
Lack of control over how you do your work

Possible signs of work related stress

When you’re feel overwhelmed at work, you lose confidence and may become angry, irritable, or withdrawn. Other signs and symptoms of excessive stress at work include:

Feeling anxious, irritable, or depressed
Apathy, loss of interest in work
Problems sleeping
Fatigue
Trouble concentrating
Muscle tension or headaches
Stomach problems
Social withdrawal
Loss of sex drive
Using alcohol or drugs to cope

What are Connexus doing to help support colleagues?

We’re committed to promoting a culture of good mental and physical health. There’s an onus on ourselves, to identify at an early stage if we feel we’re experiencing workplace stress, or whether we feel any of our colleagues are experiencing workplace stress. All reports are dealt with in the strictest confidence and we really are here to help. Our new policy aims to set out that we will work with colleagues, to identify the source/s of their stress and reduce or eliminate the risks to them – by mapping them out and putting in control measures.

Fleur Whittingham, Head of Health and Safety and Complaince

Our new policy, which pulls together all of the great work that has already been happening at Connexus, aims to promote a culture of mental and physical wellbeing by:

Increasing awareness of stress
Providing managers with a clear process to use should a colleague report that they are experiencing symptoms of stress
Providing details of the proactive measures Connexus will implement to help reduce and, where possible, eliminate stress and its causes

Our Teams

We’re embedding a culture where stress is taken seriously and all managers (and colleagues) play a key role in managing stress within the workplace.

All managers within Connexus are trained to:

Identify and be aware of the signs of stress and intervene where necessary.
Promote the organisation’s culture of a physically and mentally healthy organisation.
Manage colleagues effectively to minimise them experiencing stress
Intervene as early as possible where stress arises
Undertake a stress risk assessment with their colleagues when they identify there is a stress at work-related issue.
Ensure colleagues contribute to the organisation’s stress questionnaires.
To take steps to assist colleagues maintain a state of good mental health e.g. encourage rest breaks, fresh air, and holidays

All colleagues also have access to a counseling service, called Westfield Health who if they need additional support can arrange appointments over the phone to talk over any problems, they also have a useful app which staff have access to that has top tips and methods to maintain wellness at work.

We also have a wellbeing team and mental health first aider team who are on hand to support colleagues if they are experiencing difficulties. We publish tops, fact sheets on our company intranet including anxiety and resilience tips for staff to access when they want.

Colleagues within the business are actively engaged and asked to raise any concerns with stress at the earliest opportunity, as Fleur mentions, so that management can support them, participate in the measures Connexus put in place to reduce and eliminate stress, be aware of the signs of stress.

Unfortunately, we can’t control everything in a work environment, but that doesn’t mean our colleagues are powerless, even when they feel stuck in a difficult situation. If stress at work is interfering with work performance, health, or personal life, we encourage colleagues to take action and talk to their managers. No matter what team you work within at Connexus, we are committed to a healthy, happy workforce.

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