More public employees are stressed at work than before. But small changes in the workplace can help prevent and capture stres.
Perhaps you have experienced that your ability to concentrate and memory failed, that you withdrew socially and could not cooperate with colleagues, that you have had difficulty sleeping or palpitations. There may be symptoms of stress.
Here are tips to fight with stress.
1. Divide Work Tasks Into Must-And-Can Tasks
Together with the management, you and your colleagues must have an ongoing dialogue about prioritizing work tasks, so that they are adapted to the time and resources available. Prioritization is important to prevent stress.
However, if an employee has stress symptoms, then the employee already has difficulty prioritizing. Therefore, it is important that the employees and management continuously adjust expectations, which tasks must be solved and which tasks must be deselected if it is too busy.
2. Get a clear structure that employees and management support
Management should make sure that the workplace has a structure or plan for how you and your colleagues should act and prioritize when busy. It is important for employees to have the management’s support in their choice and opt-out of tasks on busy days.
A structural solution could be to have ‘Red – Yellow – Green’ days, where the days are divided according to how many patients or citizens need to be looked after, how difficult the citizens are, how much help they need. It can also be included in the division how many employees there are to solve the tasks if there is sick leave among the staff.
On ‘red’ days, when there is sick leave, there must be a clear plan and expectation between employees and management, which must be deprioritized.
3. Good fellowship in the workplace is important
Share the difficult experiences with colleagues, because social support is an important factor in relation to stress. Social support is emotional support if you have been in a stressful situation or met a difficult citizen. In emotionally difficult situations, it is important that you have someone you can go to with your experiences.
Talk about professional challenges together in the peer community. You need to feel confident in sharing your insecurities and get help getting to the finish line with challenging tasks. It should be perfectly okay to ask for help and say if you are in doubt about anything.
The workplace must support the good community of colleagues with staff rooms, where you meet your colleagues physically, and where there is a handover and conversation. The workplace should also make sure that you and your colleagues have time to provide social and professional support to each other.
Chairstalk suggest having comfortable sitting and standing chair helps to prevent stress at work As it helps to make body relax all the time.
4. Tell your manager what leadership actions you need.
Stress requires continuous attention and should be an item on the agenda. The employees and the management must work together on solution proposals to create the best possible conditions in a busy everyday life.
But the leader may also need your help to know what leadership actions you need. Do not sit and wait for the leader to guess what you need. Instead, divert your thinking to good things in life, such as stress.
5. Predictability at work
It can be stressful to be thrown into new tasks on a daily basis, so make sure you get predictability in the work. Your workplace should make sure that you get a rhythm in everyday life, for example by visiting some of the same citizens who need help with tasks you know and are completely comfortable with.
It is important with predictability and transparency of management for you and your colleagues. That the management keeps the employees informed and informed in relation to what is happening at your workplace, where you are going and what it will mean for the individual employee.
Uncertainty about the future can give rise to stress for some employees because their job function and tasks may change over time. Some may worry about what one needs to be able to as an employee to still be an attractive employee in three years. Ask your manager how your job responsibilities will change in the long run.
6. What can you do about stress yourself?
You need to be aware of your behavior and possible stress symptoms and get help in a timely manner. Stress can be difficult to see for colleagues, the leader and the outside world in general. Even if you are aware of the well-being and stress of your colleagues, it is equally important that you are aware of your own well-being and stress.
Get rid of stress in the bud before it escalates and becomes a long-term illness. The easiest way to do this is to ask for help or share it with someone in a timely manner. Sometimes a clarification interview, a good chat with colleagues or minor adjustments in the working day can take stress in the bud.
Stress symptoms are individual, but it is especially changed in behaviour that you need to be aware of. It is typically a sign of stress if your ability to remember deteriorates, that you can not prioritize in everyday life, have difficulty cooperating with others or can not concentrate.
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