Stress Awareness Month – How Can Businesses Help Their Workers?

By Sam Thomas | 5th April 2017 | 14 min read

There were over 488,000 reported cases of stress, anxiety and depression in the UK last year, how can employers help reduce this number?

According to No Panic, a registered UK charity who help people with anxiety disorders, around three quarters of sufferers do not get any professional help. This April for Stress Awareness Month, we'll look at how both employers and employees can help combat stress in the workplace.

What can employees do for Stress Awareness Month?

No Panic give the following pointers as advice for someone who suffers from anxiety:

  • Talk about Stress and its effects
  • Share your coping mechanisms
  • Share openly where you can get help
  • Be nice to those who are stressed and anxious
  • Look after yourself

What can employers do for Stress Awareness Month?

Back in March, we wrote about a report by ACAS which showed that nearly half of UK employees don't take their full entitlement of leave each year. Additionally, 44% of respondents fed back that they continued to work in some capacity whilst on leave, and 13% had been contacted by their line manager.

Managing absences more efficiently is the first step to reducing stress in your workforce. Not only does it mean that employees can check dates, book and receive approvals or rejections simply and easily, it also means that other people within the company can check if their colleagues are on holiday, and if so, refrain from contacting them with work-related issues during their time off.

Business should encourage staff to take all of their holidays, as it reduces the changes of burnout and means your staff are mentally and physically refreshed.

IRIS now offers IRIS HR Pro, the comprehensive cloud HR software, designed specifically for small businesses as part of our range of human resources software. IRIS HR Pro is modular software meaning you only pay for the features you need; so you can add stress-reducing tools like employee timesheet software to monitor hours worked, form builder software for employee feedback, and employee training software to help them realise potential.

IRIS HR Pro comes with detailed absence management and holiday booking functionality. Employees can easily submit holiday and sickness requests to their line manager to approve or decline. IRIS HR keeps track of used, pending and available absence totals, automatically calculates an individual’s Bradford Factor and provides a team calendar of leave booked by colleagues. This means you can stay on top of your workforce’s holidays easily and hassle-free.

If managing holidays more effectively is something you’d like to begin doing, get in touch with IRIS today to start your free, no-obligation 30-day trial of IRIS HR Pro.