Let’s be honest, work is stressful. It’s up to you to create an environment where your employees thrive and successfully manage the growing workload, distractions, negativity, and changes in the workplace.
According to The American Institute of Stress, 75 percent of employees believe that workers experience more stress in the workplace than a generation ago. In addition, 80 percent of workers experience stress at work, almost half say they need help learning how to manage stress, and 42 percent say their coworkers need such help. It is up to employers to help employees cope with the daily stress.
Managing employee stress not only increases productivity and improves the overall well-being of employees, but also prepares your team to handle events that are even more stressful or disturbing. Using the emotional intelligence of your employees means the ability to identify and manage your own emotions as well as those of others.
Here are some emotionally intelligent tips to help your employees better manage stress:
1. Promote emotional awareness
The ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions is an essential aspect of emotional intelligence. Create a space where your employees feel comfortable getting to know and share their own feelings. While it’s easy to encourage celebrations of big and small wins, helping employees share when they’re overwhelmed and stressed isn’t always easy.
Reward employees for speaking for themselves and create a team mentality to deal with and manage stressful situations. This will help employees communicate better and be more aware of their stress levels and what triggers their stress. A more confident team is equipped to handle interpersonal problems when they arise.
2. Become a trusted advisor
Build trust with your employees by creating an open door policy. Allowing your team to come you when they need a trusted person to talk prepares employees for emotionally intelligent victories. Instead of making employees feel alone and frustrated with some problem, they recognize their stress and meet with you to seek advice, support, and a potential solution. Asking for help is a stress changer.
3. Advocating the setting of boundaries
We spend most of our time at work, so it makes sense when our working life intersects with the personal. This is where borders come into play. Encourage your employees to know what their limits are and make sure they adhere to them.
Emotionally intelligent boundaries can relate to the definition of job responsibilities, such as clarifying who assigns work to whom. It can also be interpersonal boundaries, such as controlling the tone of voice used in the office. For example, venting frustrations with a client is only possible in the morning for 15 minutes during a team meeting.
4. Encourage finding resilience in passion
Failures are inevitable at work. Help employees bounce back from difficulties by focusing them on ideas, tasks, or overall projects that excite them and encourage their creativity or passion.
Finding resilience in what excites you is an emotionally intelligent way to activate a positive attitude and perspective so that you can better get through turbulent times. Employees who consciously choose to thrive despite adverse events will perceive difficulties as a time for professional growth.
5. Give an example
Most importantly, you can’t promote emotionally intelligent stress management to your employees by being a ball of stress yourself. If your employees see you working 24 hours a day, or you never take a vacation and show negativity, they will follow you.
Focus on ways to be a better example for your employees by actively managing stress. It can be as simple as putting your team together for a group workout, supporting a meditation app, or even going on the vacation you so desperately need.
