Psychosocial Stress in the Workplace: Is Your Workplace Environment Harming Employees?

April is officially Stress Awareness Month, though it’s a safe bet that a lot of workers are aware of stress at any given moment in any given month. Still, the designation does provide business leaders and managers with an opportunity to look at workplace stressors with an eye toward mitigating or even eliminating them.

In some cases, companies aren’t being given a choice. Australia, for example, will soon require businesses to actively identify and work to control psychosocial risks in the workplace.

For more on stress management, check out How to Help Your Team Manage Stress & Anxiety

Psychosocial factors, both positive and negative, are those in which a person’s own psychological traits and the social environment around them play a part. And because we spend so much of our time working, psychosocial stresses can take a major toll on our physical and mental health. It can make employees more likely to take a sick day and less likely to be proactive about career advancement.

From a purely business standpoint, that’s not good for a company’s bottom line – or its reputation. From a humanitarian perspective, it’s unconscionable for a company (or managers within it) to needlessly cause stress when there are ways to mitigate or remove it.

Simple steps to reducing psychosocial stresses

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to easing every employee’s psychosocial stresses, but there are some simple actions any employer can take to lower their employees’ overall stress level.

1. Give appropriate rewards and recognition. That includes pay, of course, but it’s not limited to wages, salaries and performance bonuses. Make sure to recognize them in front of peers for their achievements. If people work hard and well, but never receive any recognition for it, that can lead to worry that they’re not doing enough or cause them to be less motivated. That can also cause resentment and anger.
2. Offer career and personal support to your employees. Look for ways to advance their careers. This can include insurance benefits, physical and mental health services, career training, professional development, leadership development – anything that conveys the message, “We are investing in you because we value you.” Meet regularly with them and listen empathetically to their concerns.
3. Provide clear, specific job descriptions and duties, as well as specifically and clearly stating all performance expectations. When employees don’t have clearly defined duties and expectations, they can’t ever know if they’re meeting (or exceeding) those expectations and fulfilling those duties. That uncertainty ratchets up the stress level, taking away the mental security that comes with being able to measure results against clearly stated standards.

All of these things take work to establish and maintain, but they’re all achievable without putting undue burdens on the business itself. Reduce your employees’ psychosocial stresses, and everyone benefits.

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