13 Stress Reducers & Profit Boosters

The United Nations declares workplace stress to bea worldwide epidemic. In the United States alone,forty-six percent of workers report that their jobis very stressful. This adds up to a million stressrelated workplace absences each day.

Individual stress control techniques are important.Meditation, soothing music, biofeedback, and othertechniques work well to help people cope with thestress of our modern workplace.

The real solution, however, is to recognize thatstress control is a leadership responsibility.Leaders and managers can do more to control stressthan all of the individual stress relief techniquescombined. Leaders who implement stress controlstrategies see the results in reduced absenteeism,medical costs, health care insurance expenses,workers comp payments, accidents, complaints, andso on.

The following 13 stress control strategiesminimize costs such as these and productivitysoars. The workplace is improved. Employees andtheir families are happier. Business owners makemore money.

Management can control stress by:

++ Eliminating unreasonable expectations

++ Positioning people in jobs that use their

skills and abilities

++ Adjusting pay for the level of responsibility

assigned to individuals

++ Correcting vague and arbitrary promotion

policies

++ Including employee in making decisions that

affect their jobs

++ Avoiding excessive overtime, even if there is

additional compensation

++ Distributing unpleasant tasks fairly

++ Enforcing policies equally throughout the

organization, from top to bottom

++ Implementing problem-solving strategies and

acceptable mediation of conflicts

++ Using family stress control strategies to

minimize the impact of family separation

caused by travel or long office hours

++ Demonstrating concern for employee welfare

++ Eliminating or minimizing intolerable conditions

such as temperature, hazards, noise, light, and

odors

It is difficult to remove some of these stressorswhen the competition is attacking your company orwhen you are faced with unfavorable economic conditions,but this challenge is just as important as anything elsefacing those who wear the mantle of leadership.Making all of these changes can seem overwhelming.However, you can make an impact by selecting a singlestrategy and making a plan to improve it.

Just as corporate leaders are responsible formaximizing performance and increasing net profits,they are also responsible for controllingstressors that affect the bottom line.

To learn more about stress reducing strategies,send for f*ree auto responder about the top tencauses of workplace stress --toptenstressors@couragebuilders.com

Dale Collie - professional speaker, formerUS Army Ranger, CEO, and a Fast Company top50 innovative leader. Author of "WinningUnder Fire." (McGraw-Hill) collie@couragebuilders.com