Employee Stress - Let's fight it out!

Keywords

Authors: Subhadra. K, Niharika Atchyutuni
Faculty Associate, Faculty Associate
ICMR (IBS Center for Management Research).

Links

Free Resources,
Articles,
Book Reviews,
Interviews

Tools

<< Previous

How Do We Make the Workplace Healthy & Happy?

The top management of an organization has got a very vital role to play in creating a healthy workplace and a stress free work environment for employees. Following are some of the steps, which an organization can take to provide a stress-free environment for its employees:

Provide Training:
The management should take care to provide requisite training to employees to prevent anxiety and ambiguity among them regarding their job.

Employee Empowerment:
The organization should empower its employees and involve them in the decision making process to remove the feeling of 'helplessness'. This feeling is one of the reasons for employee frustration, leading to psychological stress.
Listening Management:
One of the best ways to reduce stress is to create an environment where in the voice of the employee is heard.

The management has to create a concerned and caring environment in the organization where in the employee feels he is important and he has people to listen to him.

Job Design:
Employees will be under pressure if the job requirements and employee skills do not match. So, before allotting a person to any specific task, organization should try to match the skills of the employee with the job requirements.

Ergonomics:
Ergonomics plays a very vital role in reducing physical stress among employees in an organization. The word Ergonomics is derived from two Greek words - 'ergon' and 'nomoi' meaning work and natural laws respectively. By using ergonomically designed peripherals at the workplace, organizations can minimize the chances of employee stress caused by various factors like overuse of computer and also safeguard employee health from musculoskeletal disorders. For example, ergonomically designed keyboards would reduce the inflammation and pain in fingers and wrist, a result of working with the computer for long hours. Ergonomics includes many other factors of the work environment like illumination, ventilation, chairs, noise levels etc.

Employee Recreation:
It is a well known fact that recreational activities such as - music, dramatics, etc. help people to de-stress and relax and recharge themselves. Many companies have started providing recreational facilities at the workplace, to help employees de-stress themselves. For instance, at Infosys - India's leading IT company, employees are encouraged to form Inculcom - a base organization which conducts cultural activities for Infoscions. Through Inculcom, programs are conducted in various areas such as music, dance, dramatics, quiz etc. Sub-groups covering each area are formed to conduct the various programs related to that area. The sub-groups formed under Inculcom are - IQ Circle (conducts quizzes), Shruthi (the classical musical club), Dramatix (the drama club) and Vakchaturya (self development forum).

Next >>