How Stress Affects Employee Engagement

We all have tough days in the workplace. Whether you are making high-end business deals, hiring your first employees, or trying to break even as a small business, there is a good chance that you have experienced a day that was so stressful that it felt like a year. However, there is a difference between a little bit of stress every once in a while, and a job that is constantly keeping you at the end of your tether. Stress can be incredibly detrimental to a person’s health—both mental and physical—and subsequently, their overall performance in the workplace.

Stress Affects Every Aspect of a Business

Nothing helps breed a negative work environment like stress does. When left to build, stress can eat away at employees, and corrode a business like rust. Here are some of the specific ways in which stress can negatively affect your business:

Unity

When employees feel stressed, overworked, and underappreciated, it is not uncommon for them to feel bitter and harbor feelings of resentment towards their employers. You might think that one or two unhappy employees are not the end of the world, but on the contrary, a few unhappy employees can hinder overall employee training and development and create a poor feeling in the company as a whole. As a result you will not have the kind of unity that anyone looking to have a successful business should seek after.

Productivity

When your employees are happy, they are also likely to be more productive. A little bit of pressure can be a good way to motivate people, but if you apply too much, all you have are unhappy employees and no results. Research has proven that people work better when they are happy and relaxed, and in an environment that they enjoy. Furthermore, if they have better feelings towards a company, they are more likely to want to produce better work for that company.

Employee Turnover

Employee turnover can also be affected by stress levels in the office. Although high employee turnover is not a problem for some larger companies, and sometimes can be expected, it is a dangerous thing to let fly under the radar. You will limit your pool of prospective employees if there are constantly people leaving, and you could also run the risk of damaging your company’s brand. The best and most successful companies are usually the ones which have the best reputations, the good brands, and the employees who want to stay with them for life. If your employees do not like working for you, you might struggle to find any quality workers to promote when the time comes.

Streamline Process

Making your processes hassle free is a worthy investment. We often think about all the small details to create the most resistance free customer experience but how often do we give our employee experience the same treatment? Researching emerging technology in each aspect of your intern process may yield some impressive results. Sales Processes have benefited from technology as well as training programs to name a couple. But in every niche you can usually find someone who is leveraging technology to streamline the process. Take the time to nitpick your employee experience as much as your customer experience. You’ll end up preventing stress and moving the needle on the almighty bottom line.

So in order to have a well-functioning business, it is important to do what you can to create a happy, relaxed, yet productive, atmosphere. There are many tips to preventing stress within your atmosphere. Too many for this article. Combating stress on all fronts is an ongoing process and will never be complete. Knowing how stress is hurting you and your company along with ways to mitigate that damage is an essential skill for any business.