In these unsure times, falling into a downward productivity spiral at the office can sneak up on you very easily. With the tension building on organizations to perform at higher levels than in previous years, perhaps even with a much smaller workforce, fewer hours, or higher workloads in general, it can occasionally feel like for each task that you finish, there are at least another three behind it waiting to be done and they’re all behind schedule.

This can (quite evidently) affect staff spirit; the more stressed and overworked the workplace is, the more the overall productivity levels will take a downward turn. In the worst scenarios, workers could even become ill, or require sick days/time off to recuperate on the occasions that they become overwhelmed.

As a group, project or office lead, it is highly important to ensure this doesn’t occur, not just from a business point of view, but also (and much more importantly) for the wellbeing and health of your workers. At the times when stress starts to mount up, there are various things that can be enacted in order to lighten the strain.

Take some time out

During especially busy periods in the workplace, it may not feel like you can take any time away from your work area because of your job lists or overall workload. It’s a given that this really isn’t great for workers, managers, or the general work quality itself. Without sufficient time away from work areas and jobs, stress and pressure in the workplace can develop rapidly and can be incredibly challenging to resolve if left unaddressed.

One strategy to keep this under control is to put forward ideas for staff to take part in games or team-building exercises facilitated inside the work environment. For instance, you could perhaps have an office chess competition, play a game of cards, or even get together to take a short walk outside. It doesn’t seem like a lot, and it doesn’t take a lot of arrangement, yet having that time away from your work area truly can have an effect; it can bring staff members together from various teams and departments, and everybody can find the opportunity to get a bit of breathing space when responsibilities and task lists start to become too much.

Using the Right Tools

There can be a lot of ways to complete a task, and finding the best method is important. For example, would you attempt to cook food in an oven, or over a candle? Seems like a silly question, and while the choice there is obvious, the concept often gets overlooked when it comes to task completion and process methods. Having the best possible tools for the job can make a daunting task thousand times easier.

Using software as an example; there are millions of various types of programs and software in use all across the planet. Nonetheless, just a tiny fraction of them will be helpful for the requirements of your business and it can be critical to choose the right ones. It would be incredibly difficult to design an entire website using Excel, for example, but recording databases and information on it is a lot easier than trying to use Word for the same purpose. So why stay stuck behind? Cutting-edge programming developments are getting faster and easier to use constantly; even financial and bookkeeping programs, for example, Sage has become cloud-based. This helps to simplify, reduce stress, and generally provide an overall straightforward process method for clients, managers, and workers all at the same time.

Appreciation

Investing a lot of energy into a task, spending days, weeks, or even months working with the project group, gathering data, carrying out a process plan, managing it stage-by-stage, finishing all primary responsibilities involved, and getting to the stage that you can at long last call it complete, it shouldn’t be too far of a stretch of the imagination that appreciation ought not to be a lot to ask for. Going through all that work to just be waved away and dismissed or undervalued can be massively debilitating to employee morale, and now and again, it has cost organizations a sizable portion of their most well-trained and experienced specialists over the years.

Clearly, a fanfare isn’t required after each job has been finished, however, showing appreciation for your staff really buckling down through extreme jobs will echo well throughout the business: getting doughnuts or sweet treats for the workplace, subsidising a take-away lunch for the office (pizza tends to go down well!), or even something little like a personal email to the group to thank them for their work on the task. While these don’t require a lot of effort, in the event that it’s addressed that the difficult work has been noted and appreciated, office spirit won’t be as negatively impacted by things such as pressure and stress while workloads and tensions are high.

Keeping representatives spurred and energized during particularly tricky times shouldn’t need to be overly impactful on the business and working hour prerequisites, particularly while working from out-of-office or from home. Holding pressure and stress levels down will assist with keeping everybody motivated, and endeavour to go about their work with a higher level of quality and attention, especially during peak working seasons. Ensure your groups get their rest, their efforts are acknowledged and appreciated, and they are urged to approach a manager or their group leader in the event that they are overwhelmed or feeling exhausted. A contented, encouraging office is an efficient one!