Since 1992, every April has been Stress Awareness Month, seeking to inform people and organisations about stress and its causes, and provide them with the tools and resources to manage it effectively.
In pursuit of reducing stress and mitigating against its far-reaching negative impacts in the workplace, it’s important to be aware of exactly what stress is, especially in comparison to pressure.
Stress ≠ Pressure
Pressure is the feeling that the outcome of something at stake is dependent on your performance. This is a natural part of almost every professional role, and even an important part of many.
Lining up the 95th minute penalty kick at Wembley to win the FA cup for your team = pressure
Stress occurs when someone has too many demands placed upon them, and inadequate resources to meet them. Those resources could be time, money, energy, or even less quantifiable resources like emotional ones.
Four reports to write by Friday, in and out of meetings all week with half your team on annual leave = stress
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According to research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, stress is the leading cause of long-term workplace absence, and second only to minor illnesses when it comes to short-term absences.
Despite an increase in general awareness, thanks in part to initiatives like Stress Awareness Month, workplace stress was still on the rise in 2017, with 18% of people saying work regularly makes them feel stressed, and 38% of employees reporting that they are under excessive pressure at work at least once a week.
https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/culture/well-being/stress-factsheet
Eliesha Training has developed an extensive portfolio of training interventions that can help increase awareness of workplace stress and help to prevent it from disrupting and demoralising your people, or putting the brakes on your organisation’s productivity and growth.
Bitesize & Masterclass
Eliesha’s most popular face-to-face training sessions are Bitesize (1½ hour) and Masterclass (3 hour) sessions, which are designed to deliver practical, useful skills and knowledge in a short session that can be easily organised around the overloaded diaries of busy employees.
Bitesize topics relating to workplace stress include “Less Stress”, “Resilience Brilliance” and “Introduction to Mindfulness” and we have Masterclass topics like “Personal Resilience” and “Time Management”, all of which can be delivered by experienced trainers at your workplace and will empower your people with the skills and knowledge they need to reduce their own levels of stress, and the stress levels of their colleagues or teams.
Pearls of Wisdom®
To support the demand for just-in-time learning, available in any situation and on a variety of platforms, we designed our award-winning range of micro-learning videos: pearls of wisdom®. These short, dynamic animated videos cover a wide range of essential management and leadership models. In just 3-4 minutes they deliver timely and relevant nuggets of knowledge to time-deprived learners.
We have a range of categories, with one entitled ‘Health & Wellbeing’ that covers the important topic of stress in the workplace.
To discuss our range of face-to-face training solutions for managing stress in your workplace, or to arrange a free trial of our pearls of wisdom®, contact us now.
