Businesses need to take stress seriously! This April, here at RecruitmentJunky we produced a series of polls, posts and helpful tips across our social media to help us dive deeper into stress awareness month – a subject that isn’t spoken about enough or dealt with correctly.

So let’s change that!

We talk to numerous rapid-growth businesses and job hunters daily as a recruitment agency. But stress awareness month is an excellent time to learn from our audiences and find real data on how different people deal with stress – be that at work, or during interviews. From our findings, we’ve provided some top tips on managing stress for them – and for our team too!

Here’s a closer look at what we found out over the course of this month…

Listening to our community’s views on stress at work

Stress in the workplace is common. But it can be managed effectively (and reduced) when you have the correct support and understanding from managers and team mates.

In an effort to understand our audience better, we asked them questions on the topic of ‘stress at work’ in the form of LinkedIn polls.

Let’s check out the results:

Poll 1: What is your top cause of stress at work?

The results:

Our poll proved that the main cause of stress at work is an excessive workload, with over 39% of the votes. Surprised? No? Neither were we!

Excessive amounts of work and unrealistic deadlines can make people feel rushed, under pressure and overwhelmed. Researching this further, an increased workload can result in some pretty undesirable consequences including:

• Less productivity
• Increased errors
• Poor work-life balance
• Risk of burn out
• Negative impact on health
• Higher levels of absence

On the flip side… only nine people claimed that demanding managers were the cause of their workplace stress. Wahoo – we can only assume that this is because they have really supportive managers! This can make a massive difference to workplace productivity and less stress.

Poll two: How do you reset when you’re feeling stressed from work?

So, we found out what makes you stressed, but what about when it comes to de-stressing?

The results:

Exercise! A massive 51% of our audience voted they like to use exercise as a way to de-stress over the other three options on our poll.

And we totally get why. In the short term, exercise has a direct stress-busting benefit: reducing stress hormones. This relieves any tension, anxiety, anger or mild depression that often does go hand-in-hand with stress.

Long term? It can improve the quality of your sleep, boost confidence levels, and improve your physical and mental wellbeing.

Stress-less interviews

For lots of people, one of the most stressful events are job interviews. And boy do we get it!

As a recruitment agency, we wanted to find a way to support our candidates with stressful interviews. So, using our expertise as recruiters, we created a quick guide on ways you can use your senses to calm down when under interview pressure.

Supporting our RecruitmentJunky team during stress awareness month

Above all, we know how important it is to support our team. A happy team is a productive team, so we do our best to help lower stress levels for all employees. We do this by encouraging:

• Open and honest communication among the team and with managers
• Weekly 1-1 sessions
• Utilisation of flexible working
• Family hours (especially handy during those school holidays!)
• Involving employees in decision making

However, it is not always possible to eliminate all stress. Especially when you work in a high stress role such as recruitment or sales. But there are ways to manage stress levels. For example, stress reduction kits.

Our team have been encouraged to build their own stress reduction kits. They are full of reminders, activities, or objects that will help them relieve stress. Here are some of our favourite stress busters (AKA ways to relieve stress):

How can a stress reduction kit help you?

There are many different methods which can help you take control of your mind and alleviate feelings of stress. It’s important you find what works for you.

A stress reduction kit can be made up of a collection of either physical objects (e.g. stress balls ), reminders or activities (stress busters!) that help you stay calm when you experience feelings of stress, anxiety or panic.

In other words, when it comes to stress relief, it’s trial and error to start with. Find what works for you!

Our final thoughts on stress awareness month

Stress awareness month has been held every April since 1992 to increase awareness about the causes and cures for everyday stressors. However, despite the fact that this has been held for 20 years, stress still isn’t being taken seriously. And RecruitmentJunky wants to help change that!

In conclusion, this month is a great way to remind us to look after ourselves. But, it is important do this all year round not just during April. Remember to:

• 💡 Talk about stress and it’s effects
• 💡 Share coping strategies
• 💡 Be empathetic towards your friends, family and co-workers who are dealing with stress
• 💡 Most importantly, look after yourself

We’ve also researched some handy tools and resources. Check out this link for a guide of free resources and other helpful tips about managing stress.

Article written by Tayla Marks. Need more RecruitmentJunky? Catch up on all our latest news, interview tips and business help on our #NewsJunky.