I have keenly been following conversations on abuse in the workplace as varied views and opinions are discussed. A recent tragedy was reported of a young hardworking employee who jumped to his death and according to a daily, he was overworked, burned out, a perfectionist.
Stress in the workplace is a current daily experience. Adequate stress that keeps the adrenaline running at a good pace is welcome. Stress that leads to diseases and death should be a concern for organizations and indeed leaders.
What leads to stress in the workplace?
The obvious is the never-ending demand for better results. The world is rapidly changing, the customers are more demanding and dictate the trends and organizations have to be more innovative to remain ahead of the customer or to respond to the customer’s demands or be annihilated by competition.
A certain organization has always been very driven to remain at the top. The employees are so driven that it’s been said that at a business planning session, an employee collapsed while making his presentation. He was wheeled out of the room to hospital and without a break, his colleague was asked to continue with the presentation.
In another organization, two senior employees succumbed to heart attacks in one year. One of them while at work.
The demand for results places a lot of pressure on the employees to deliver often without adequate resources. In order to make huge returns, organizations consistently work on reducing costs sometimes at the expense of necessary investments in employees in terms of their training and upskilling. However, the employee is expected to continue delivering results within this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment. Employees have needs outside work, bills to pay and families to take care of so they stay and work. They learn to quickly adjust to the new environment, some of the time the hard way. They fear to lose their jobs so they work and work themselves into hospital emergency rooms or into drugs and alcohol and broken families.
Another cause of stress is the leadership… the managers and bosses. A manager under pressure to deliver in the environment described above pushes the pressure down to his team. A manager who is not self-aware especially on how they respond to work pressure may ruin their team members’ careers forever. It’s been said that people don’t leave organizations they leave their managers. I beg to differ. Employees leave both the organizations and their managers.
Human beings are competitive by nature. Employees want to excel at what they do and some more than others will do whatever it takes to excel. They work hard to get to the next level, they study and attain a certificate to back them up. All this is good but it sometimes has done at the expense of everything else that matters, one’s health and sometimes family. The higher one rises in the workplace the higher the responsibilities and demands. This takes a toll on one, quietly, silently and hypertension becomes a part of their lifestyle.
Some organizations are well aware of the issues and some leave it to the employee to figure out how to cope…we often hear of shape up or ship out. Some have implemented policies that support the employee deal with these workplace challenges but others only pay lip service to these policies They have nice policies like flexitime and work remotely etc. All good but do not address the pressure causing the stress.
How can these work pressures be remedied?
As an employee, remember you are first a human being then an employee. Take care of yourself and your health, that’s all that matters at the end of the day. Go to work do it with your head and not your heart..the work doesn’t recognize your heart and remembers it’s not personal. If the workplace gets too toxic and you have exhausted all channels of support internally, leave. Ship out. Don’t forget to seek social support from family, friends, professionals, etc.
For leaders, know thyself. You are bestowed with a very heavy responsibility for leading teams. It’s not just their work that matters to you, it’s their careers and futures and to some extent their health. The good book says, “to whom a lot is given, a lot is expected.” Invest in yourself for your own sake and that of your team. Get to know your people on a personal level. That way you get to know their strengths and weaknesses both at a work and a personal level.
For the HR community, your role is duo fold, you are a business partner and an employee advocate. Go beyond the policies and get to know your people. As an advocate, speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves, call out managers who bully and overwork their teams. Also, support managers who are struggling in their roles. In addition, guard against budget cuts that deny employees opportunities for development. As a business leader, find creative ways of achieving results in employee development and delivering ROI through your function. Your core responsibility is the people, remember that.