I view de-stressing of the workplace as a team oriented action.
Utilizing an approach supported and perhaps centered by organization leaders is I believe highly valuable in creating a common context for discussion and action.
Individual actions and motivation go hand in hand with the organization in creating an emotionally satisfying workplace as well as managing outside stress issues that inevitably impact workplace behavior.
Two small examples can illustrate my point.
From the organizational perspective, consider this.
A merger comes up, and discussion in the workplace centers on the high level of uncertainty that passes through the organization.
You will likely find some who are not fased by this process, and some who are.
If your organization has had stress awareness and management training, venting is understood as a process apart from the need to guarantee positions and other external security issues.
If for instance team members are necessarily in a situation of re-organization, staff members can be tuned to address issues of certainty, as for instance highlighting the performance records of personnel, or the record of flexibility personnel has demonstrated.
From the individual perspective, while externally solving issues of anxiety, uncertainty and stress is traditional, behaviorally programmed and historically reinforced, studies have found that individuals with the learning and practice to use internal as well as external stress management tend to fare better.
For instance, though males tend to be socialized towards external management of stressors-which is par for the course for the fight or flight mechanism-external stress management tends to fare less well in life changing circumstances like a death in the family, catastrophic illness, sudden job loss or natural disaster that takes the home, the natural icon for security.
In these cases internal stress management, which tends to be socialized by women, tends to fare better.
These kinds of tactics include re-thinking, emotional compensation techniques, venting, relaxation and letting go of the need to change the emotions surrounding the situation.
Organizational stress analysis, when used inclusively to catalog, classify, and offer options for stress issues, doesn't mean that the organization needs to accept full responsibility for all stressors individuals identify in the workplace.
This would be ridiculous.
On the other hand, an emotionally intelligent organization will provide to its co-workers information on potential stressors in and outside of the workplace as well as offer its team solutions for managing stress created by the spectrum of stressors, options that develop good stress communication as well as make explicit viable options to allow individuals to step out of the either-or of the fight or flight mechanism.
By working with a regular stress management support program; efficiency, personal investment in the organization and potential savings for the organization-as well as personal satisfaction in the workplace-can be realized.
While stress is considered a primary component in the majority of doctor visits, proactive stress management has the capacity to lower the number of sick days an organization has to absorb as well as lower overall health care premiums-by proactively providing for an emotionally healthy, low stress environment that in turn offers greater employee satisfaction and de-stressing options.