Stress Affects Employees and Company’s Workplace Productivity

As the saying goes, “Stress kills.” That is how it often feels when you are overwhelmed with work. Many believe a little bit of stress can improve their productivity. However, the truth is that it is not stress. Feeling challenged at work can excite you and push you to be more creative and productive, but feeling stressed is a different emotion that can leave you with health, emotional, and workplace issues. However, outside of the personal feelings that stress causes, it also dramatically impacts workplace productivity. This month Eagle Health is discussing how the impact of stress severely affects productivity and a company’s bottom line.

What is stress?

According to the World Health Organization, stress is the inability to cope with the demands placed on us. These demands can come from various sources, including work, personal relationships, financial problems, and health concerns. To make matters worse, many people feel that their job is one of the most stressful things in their lives. Stress can affect all areas of your life, including your health. It has been linked to a range of physical health problems, including high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes, as well as mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression.

The impact of stress on productivity

• Everyone can sometimes experience stress from their family, health, work, or school. Here are some examples of how stress is negatively impacting your productivity.
• Stress can affect your sleep and energy levels. No one can perform at their best when they feel like they do not have the energy.
• Do you need to start a project, and yet your mind is racing, and you do not know where to start? Stress can make it extremely difficult to focus on the task.
• Have you ever been so consumed with worry about something? That stress about something that may or may not happen can reduce productivity.
• We now know stress can affect your productivity and health, but it can also affect your emotions. You may anger or cry easily, be moody, or yell more often; the root cause may be stress.

What are the symptoms of workplace stress? 

Physical:

• fatigue
• muscular tension
• headaches
• heart palpitations
• sleeping difficulties, such as insomnia
• gastrointestinal issues
• dermatological disorders.

Emotional:

• depression
• anxiety
• despair
• moodiness
• pessimism
• feelings of being overwhelmed and unable to cope
• lack of concentration
• inability to make decisions.

Behavior:

• Taking more sick or personal days than normal
• aggression
• lack of creativity
• a slip in work performance
• problems with interpersonal relationships
• mood swings and irritability
• impatience
• disinterest

How stress affects company productivity

As stress affects someone’s overall health and emotional well-being, it also affects workplace productivity. One of the most common ways is through absenteeism. Stress-related symptoms such as difficulty sleeping, high blood pressure, and headaches can cause you to miss work more often. Stress affects the workplace in other ways, too.

Staff turnover: Employees who feel as if they are overwhelmed by stress may feel the grass would be greener and healthier elsewhere. Your coworkers may notice and feel the same as you and decide to leave. Anxiety can become an epidemic, resulting in high rates of staff turnover. This then constrains your company to invest more funding and time in hiring and training new employees.

Continuous tardiness: Being late to work can happen from time to time, but being late to work because you can’t sleep at night or dread going to the office and become sluggish in your morning routine can result from stress.

Team unity: Stress can cause you to want to isolate from your coworkers. This can lead others to feel hurt or question your actions and disrupt team unity. Meanwhile, your isolation could result from a lack of sleep and energy.

Quality of work: As we have shown, stress can lead to focus issues, fatigue, and personality changes, significantly impacting productivity.

How to reduce stress

You recognize that you are stressed, but what can you do to reduce your stress? Below are some tips that may help.

Exercise – Not only will exercise help your physical health, but it can help you sweat out the stress and may even help you sleep better.

Meditation – Taking five minutes to focus instead on your breathing can reduce the constant focus on what is stressing you.

Divert your focus to something creative – Changing your scenery or project to something creative may excite your brain into being more productive.

Clean your office –Sometimes, having a clean workspace can make you feel accomplished enough to tackle your project again.

In with the good, out with the bad – focus on the good things in your life

Ask for help – Utilize the company’s Employee Assistance Program or speak with a professional who can give you tips to help with your stress

There is no one reason for workplace stress; it could be job demands, outside external factors, or changes at work, just as there is no one solution for dealing with stress. Having work that challenges you can be exciting, but feeling stressed can decrease your work productivity. Eagle Health hopes companies and individuals can face their stress and find solutions through it.