Stress down days
Two firms share the secrets of managing stress in the workplaceLet’s go back a few years, and take a glimpse inside the office of a busy ad agency. There’s an MD sitting at a cluttered desk, with a grey, lined face and a foot that’s continually jittering. His mobile rings: he ignores it. A junior nervously edges up to him, looking for a quick word of advice: he ignores her, too.
The MD picks up his desk phone to call his bank. He gets through to an automated system. But the bank’s system can’t, or won’t, understand him as he enunciates his account number repeatedly and with increasing impatience.
Suddenly a synapse flips in his brain, and he slams his receiver into his laptop screen. The screen breaks first. It turns into an image of random rainbow colours, much like one of those old-fashioned screensavers, but one that won’t disappear no matter how often you press the Escape key.
The receiver, too, never fully regains wellness. It also has to carted off by an IT support guy who lets it be widely known that he has better things to do than clean up after executive paddies.
No, that MD (we’ll get back to him later) isn’t an unusual case. The HSE reckons that stress is the biggest of all the twenty-first century workplace demons. Over 105 million days are lost due to stress each year, it claims.
And even though presenteeism might be dragging stress statistics down, there’s still a huge issue. So how can HR be proactive about stress management?
We talked to two organisations that are squaring up to stress in two different ways. Both, though, are taking a proactive approach: one with regard to prevention, and the other to the management of individuals who are suffering.
The resilience revolution
That stress prevention is better than cure is an idea with traction at PwC.
Sally Evans, the organisation’s Senior Manager of Diversity & Inclusion and Employee Wellbeing, is currently rolling out a series of workshops with the assertive title of ‘Resilience: Driving Performance’.
The workshops last two hours and are typically held for departments, or for teams working together on specific projects. (Workshopping with operational teams helps individuals carry learnings into the workplace, says Evans.) Almost 2000 employees have participated so far. Clearly, there’s an appetite.
The content of the workshops is scientifically robust, says Evans – this is more than just a good-natured attempt to jolly everyone up.
“It’s largely about the science of energy levels, and how they relate to resilience,” she says, citing Biology and Psychology as two disciplines that have been key to the course’s construction. “We’re helping people become more mindful, more cognisant of what might cause workplace negativity.”
The workshops also help attendees “feel confident about making a difference” and overcome short-term setbacks by focusing on longer-term goals.
“We try to make it as experiential as we can,” adds Evans, “by practically exploring issues such as lack of sleep. But we also try to create an environment that’s conducive to self-reflection and self-awareness. There’s a lot of trust in the room.”
‘It’s OK to have these conversations’
Creating that trust is all the more impressive because all levels of employees attend the sessions together.
“It’s good to have senior leaders attend, so they can clearly express ownership of wellbeing issues. It also helps our people understand that we’re serious about wellbeing – that it’s OK to have these conversations – and that behavioural change is a collective undertaking that requires support.”
Evans emphasises how every attendee leaves the workshop with an action plan, that the impact of the intervention will be measured via employee surveys, and that a network of ‘Wellbeing Champions’ is already sharing success stories.
Did Evans have to make a case for funding? “It wasn’t necessarily a case of pushing at an open door,” she admits. “But ultimately, the business understands the link being wellbeing, engagement, client service and productivity.”
The workshops were piloted first, with quantified evidence of uplift in engagement helping whet the appetite for a wider implementation.
Management on the money
Building resilience is a great idea, but no intervention can be 100% successful, and clearly HR needs to know how to act when employees do become stressed.
Kerry Ryan, HR Director of the Currency Division of De La Rue International, has implemented various stress-reduction strategies throughout her workforce.
‘There’s a very common error regarding absence management in situations related to stress,” she says. “That error is leaving the employee alone. The temptation is to ‘let them cool off’, but don’t – that’s a big mistake.”
Ryan emphasizes the importance of keeping lines of communication open. ‘There are three factor that stop people coming back to work when they’ve been suffering from stress,” she says.
‘The first is illness itself. The second is social concern – how will my team treat me when I return? The third is concern around capability – it’s easy to lose confidence in your ability to the job when you’ve been away.
“Over time, the first factor diminishes, but the second two get bigger. To stop those two becoming overwhelming, early intervention is key.”
Audits commissioned
Ryan suggests conducting a stress audit with the absentee as soon as is reasonable. (“Do it face-to-face if you can, and it can be good to get them back over the workplace threshold.”) At the audit – in line with HSE recommendations – De La Rue will explore “making reasonable interventions” to working conditions if that’s what’s required.
Ryan’s team will action-plan at this stage, suggesting modifications such as decreased workload or changes to key working relationships.
“But what appears on the surface to be a work issue is often really a combination of issues,” warns Ryan. “An employee might be moving house, having financial problems, or getting their kitchen ripped out, and suddenly they have a huge row with their boss over something they’d otherwise be fine with.”
Actions in cases such as these might include encouraging the employee to explore counseling or medication, or giving them time off to fix personal issues such as child or parental care.
‘The important thing then is for the employer to do what they said they would,” adds Ryan, citing cases in which employers had been found liable for not delivering necessary changes to an employee’s experience at work.
The wrong note
Don’t misunderstand the nature of a doctor’s note, adds Ryan. “A note doesn’t mean the employer can’t, or shouldn’t, do anything.”
Complicating factors include a GP’s decisions often being based on unsubstantiated stories: how is the presence of stress objectively proved in the surgery? And Operational Health professionals can still conduct their own fitness-for-work tests.
“You can write to a GP, thank them for their note, and inform them of your plan to reduce the individual’s stress. Then you explain that you’re expecting to see the individual back by a date earlier than the GP suggested, but are happy to reconsider if the GP contacts you with objections,” says Ryan.
Other tips include inviting absentees into the workplace for a coffee during their time away: seeing colleagues view them sympathetically can help reduce that fear of social alienation that could keep the absentee away too long.
It’s also a good idea to ensure line managers are present in any action planning, says Ryan, so any decisions relating to changes in working practices can’t be dismissed “as something HR told me to do.”
Stress stigma
The stigma of stress can be an issue, says Ryan. Certain individuals can consider it as career limiting, as it can be hard to shake off the perception that those who suffer are ‘flakey’.
I think about the MD mentioned earlier (which of course was me) and that the general professional inclination is not to freely admit that one suffers from stress.
“Often it’s best if the perception connects stress with an event, such as a bereavement or a relationship breakdown, so it can be seen as a short-term rather than a character flaw,” says Ryan.
Managers can also find the shadowy areas of issues such as stress and depression alienating, as ‘they don’t always know what to say.’
Ryan, though, has her own way of welcoming back absentees, which she claims has served her well over the years.
“Sometimes people don’t want to talk about what they’ve been through,” she says. “If they want to talk, then that’s fine – but I won’t force them. I’ll just go up to them on the floor, shake their hand and say, ‘Welcome back, we missed you.’”
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