Building Resilience in the Workplace

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From high workloads to demanding deadlines and eager clients, our place of work can often be the #1 source of a lot of our stress. After some time, this stress can lead to mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, burnout, and low ambition. However, workplace stress does not have to become debilitating. With some meaningful strategies, you can learn to cope with your job's stress and build resilience, lessening the impact of stress over time. What's great is that you can easily apply these practical tips and insights to your everyday life, helping you deal with stressors and maintain your mental health in the workplace.

Strategies for Building Resilience

Let's talk about some of the strategies you can use to help build up your resilience to workplace stress, as well as how to cope with it when it becomes just a bit too much. Here is a quick peek into the most effective ones, which we will define even further throughout the article:

  • Stress Management Techniques
  • Seeking Support
  • Setting Boundaries
  • Developing Adaptive Coping Strategies
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Stress Management Techniques

Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the present moment without judgment or distraction. Mindfulness can help you calm your nervous system, regulate your emotions, and focus your attention. You can practice mindfulness by doing meditation, breathing exercises, or mindful activities such as walking, eating, or listening to music.

Utilise Deep Breathing Exercises

Deep breathing exercises are simple yet powerful ways to relieve stress, anxiety, and even frustration. When you take deep, controlled breaths, you simultaneously lower your heart rate, decrease blood pressure, and reduce muscle tension. You can practice deep breathing by inhaling slowly and deeply through your nose, filling your lungs and abdomen, and exhaling slowly and completely through your mouth.

Learn How to Achieve Better Time Management

Another strategy that stands out is time management. This refers to the skill of planning and organising your tasks in terms of priority, ability to finish, and overall time consumption. With better time management, you can reduce your workload, meet deadlines, and ultimately lower your stress.

So, how do you achieve better time management? Start by setting achievable goals, prioritising your tasks in terms of importance, and delegating your responsibilities when possible. In addition to avoiding procrastination and practising time management, ensure that you also take regular breaks to reduce the risk of burnout.

Seek a Support Network

One way to deal with workplace stress and build resilience is to seek support from different sources. A support network can help you:

  • Feel less isolated and more connected.
  • Gain different perspectives and insights.
  • Receive feedback and guidance.
  • Access resources and opportunities.
  • Enhance your self-esteem, confidence and overall mental wellbeing.

Seeking support means reaching out to others who can offer you emotional, practical, or professional assistance. Some examples of these individuals are colleagues, supervisors, family and friends, and even mental health professionals. By reaching out to the people in your life, you will release some of your body's built-up stress, helping you feel calmer and more at ease.

Setting Boundaries

Setting boundaries is one of the most important ways to increase resilience to stress. Doing so protects your mental well-being and personal time, helping you avoid overworking yourself, reducing anger and fatigue, and enhancing your work-life balance.

You can establish limits in various aspects of your work, such as work-related duties and roles, communication, and relationships. You can prioritise your duties by urgency and importance for work-related duties and roles and delegate or contract out when possible. You can also decline unrealistic or impractical requests.

You can control how frequent and available you are and use appropriate channels and methods of communication. Responding to messages and calls promptly and courteously can also help you establish limits with work-related communication.

Developing Adaptive Coping Strategies

Developing adaptive coping strategies is another vital strategy for building resilience and coping with workplace stress. Developing adaptive coping strategies means finding positive and constructive ways to deal with stress and adversity rather than negative and destructive ones. Some of the adaptive coping strategies that you can develop are:

  • Reframing Your Perspective: Reframing refers to the process of changing your outlook or perspective on a specific situation (oftentimes, stressful ones). Instead of focusing on the negatives of these situations, it is beneficial to find the positives.
  • Problem-solving: Problem-solving skills help you identify issues and overcome challenges faster. This will ultimately reduce your stress, leaving you feeling less overwhelmed and ready to tackle your goals.
  • Enhancing Your Skill Set: Acquiring and using new skills for work can help you lower stress and boredom. This is mostly because you will feel more self-assured and capable in your tasks.

It's not only about learning what skills and strategies to learn. Learning to develop and implement them into your routine is equally important. You can develop these strategies by being open-minded, curious, proactive, and seeking feedback and opportunities.

Cultivating a Resilient Work Culture

Building resilience and coping with workplace stress is the responsibility of both the employee and the employer. Some workers may think they have no choice but to cope with the pressure of their jobs, but there are actually various methods a workplace can use to lower stress and promote better mental well-being for its workers.

Providing Employee Assistance Programs & Initiatives

For organisations and businesses looking for ways to cultivate a resilient workforce, providing employee assistance programs should be at the top of the list. While these programs will often cost the company money, they will increase morale around the office as it supports the mental and physical health of the employees. Among these programs may be counselling opportunities, skill coaching/training, gym memberships, free health screens, and much more! With these programs, employees can better care for themselves, helping to reduce stress and promote a healthier work environment.

Encouraging Recognition and Appreciation

Recognition and appreciation are expressions of gratitude and acknowledgement for employees' contributions and achievements. They can include praise, feedback, rewards, incentives, and other forms of recognition. Organisations can encourage recognition and appreciation to help their employees feel valued and motivated.

Setting Up Suggestion Boxes (and actually using them!)

One way to lower stress levels at work is to use suggestion boxes. These boxes allow employees to express their views, ideas, and stressors, helping employers understand what causes stress in their organisation and how to solve them.

Suggestion boxes have many advantages for lowering workplace stress. They encourage open communication, assist in finding out the reasons for stress, and increase employee involvement. Suggestion boxes offer employees a safe and confidential way to communicate their feelings and issues, building trust and honesty in the workplace.

When employers listen to employee feedback and respond to their issues, it shows that they care about employee well-being, enhance engagement, and improve morale. In summary, suggestion boxes can be a useful method for employers who want to lower workplace stress and create a healthy and productive work environment.

Note: Many workplaces will set up suggestion boxes but never follow through on the suggestions. To effectively reduce stress around the office, employers must implement a suggestion box and consciously go through each suggestion given.

The Bottom Line

Workplace stress is a pervasive issue affecting millions of professionals worldwide. However, with the right tools and strategies, you can lower the impact of job stress on you and your body.

If you're seeking ways to help your employees cope with work stress and build resilience, Xono offers a comprehensive approach tailored to address the multifaceted challenges of modern work environments. It equips you with a platform on which your company can easily manage a customised wellbeing strategy. Don't let workplace stress keep your employees from being productive; take control with Xono!


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Location: South Africa

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