Stress management training highlights

Stress Management at work: course highlights Patrick PrinSeptember 2015

May 1, 2023 Patrick Prin – Do not replicate without authorization 1

Stress Management at workCourse content

• Introduction: why this course?

• What is stress? Different types of stressors, impacts of stress

• Frequent situations of stress at work

• How to remediate to a stressing situation at work

• Limiting stress level in your work environment – De-stress

• Conclusion and reminders


IntroductionWhy this course?Many different studies and observations have been done regarding impact of stress at work since the beginning of the previous centuryNot handling your professional stress appropriately may have serious consequences:

• Decreasing your motivation

• Limiting your efficiency

• Impacting your personal and family life

• Leading to burn out and serious mental illnesses

• Triggering some physiological diseases from light to very serious ones

Overall it might be compromising your career and professional life.Not all people are reacting to stress the same way and you may be better prepared handling it well.Still it is interesting to understand what is stress and what are the supporting mechanisms so as to strengthen your natural defenses


What is stress?The different forms of stressThese body responses always depend from the perception that every individual has from pressures he feels. According to the medical definition, it results from a complex sequence of events that are generating physiological and psychosomatic responses. By extension all these events are also designated as stress.All people are not equal for coping with stress so these body responses really differ from one person to another.In common language we talk about positive stress (or eustress) or negative stress (or distress). Stress is different from anxiety, that is an emotion when stress is a response mechanism that can bring different emotions, anxiety being one of them.A recurring form of distress is also called “chronic stress” and the most dangerous one for the body.


Stress at workSome usual situations that we will consider• Conflict between your objectives and role, unclear job role

• Relationship issue with one or several colleagues or your boss

• Significant and durable work overloading, overtime

• Presentation in front of executives or large audience

• Difficult situation with customers

• Management role in challenging people context

• Personal issues overlapping with professional life

• Significant changes in job or responsibilities

• Insufficient performance due to missing skills

• Threatening, risky or harassing situations

• Unpredicted or unplanned events impacting your work lifeThis list is not exhaustive of course…


Stress at work exampleManagement role in challenging people context

• This usually happens to any manager or projectmanager at least once in their professional life

• Managing people may bring additional stressors, some of them particularly impacting, such as:o Workforce reduction plans and lay offso Being squeezed between challenging objectives and team members not

adhering and not performing, leading to under performanceo Having to deal with a difficult person sucking most of your availabilityo Serious conflict between some of your team memberso Significant organization change impacting your team

• The manager is often alone in these situations and cannot really share his concerns with other people, particularly true for inexperienced ones.

• Levels of negative stress can go very high as a result


Distress remediation’s – De-stressTake care of our work life balance

Different studies have demonstrated that people who have only work in their life are much more exposed to stressors and distress.Except for some lucky people naturally more inclined to eustress, it is highly recommended to maintain some balance between work and personal life, with activities such as

• Family related, children care and education, etc…

• Taking some fresh air, horse riding, gardening, etc…

• Exercising, practicing some sport on a regular basis

• Do it yourself, books reading, playing music, cooking, sewing, etc…

• Meet friends and relax outside of working time

• Avoid working on week-ends and before going to bed

• Any other business that can keep your mind away from work In France almost 50% of workers consider having an unbalanced life, mainly due to work overload and overtime


Distress remediation’s – De-stressDecrease your number of stressorsIn real life you may be facing situations where it becomes impossible to deal with all stressors at once.If the balance between work life constraints and your personal life as well as what you perceive as positive coming from your work (too many work stressors) you should consider a changeThis change might be:

• Getting your role and responsibilities revised

• Changing job or position

• Changing work domain

• Changing companyIt does not have to be immediate and it is betterto take some time before moving so as to ensurethat the next step will be better balanced compared to your current role.

Work life

Personal lifeHome

activitiesFamily

WorkloadConstraintsStress levelAffordable?

Satisfaction from work

Recognition and rewards


Distress remediation’s – De-stressA wrong approach that must be avoided

Many people use psychoactive medications to cope with overstress and overwork, consumption in Western Europe including France is increasingdramatically, but:

• This does not help removing any stressors

• People do not progress dealing with their stress, they just expect the drug to deal with it

• Sleeping aids are dangerous since they do not provide a quality sleep and are limiting ability of individuals to recover well from their tiredness; they are not adapted for chronic sleep disturbances

• Antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers and anxiolytics should be used only for curing psychological diseases or mental illness, but they are very often used to help dealing with distress. They should always be used under control of a physician.

• Using these medications on a recurring pattern is risky for people health and some connection has been recently established with the Alzheimer illness. In many countries, sedatives and hypnotics as considered as drugs and taking them without prescription is forbidden by law.

• It is much safer to address the root cause of the problem either removing some stressors either learning how to better deal with them


How to avoid stressing your co-workersSome management behaviors to banish

Several stressors are directly coming from wrong management behaviors that should be avoided, such as:

• Judgment about the person instead of deliverables or behaviors

• Injustice amongst team members or discrimination

• Not recognizing good performance

• Not acknowledging poor performance

• Not offering a second chance to someone havingfailed but eager to do his job well

• Not listening to employee complaints

• Losing your temper in front of your employees

• Imposing overtime as a standard for yourteam due to your own behavior

• Do manage and do not manipulate

• Transfer your own stress to your team membersIn general, don’t do to your employees what you would not like tosee coming from your own managerIt is responsibility from both managers and employees to stop these unprofessional behaviorsThe employee should not accept them but the manager should avoid themMay 1, 2023 Patrick Prin – Do not replicate without authorization 10

ConclusionReminders from this training session 1/2Key elements that you should remember:

• There are different forms of stress:o Positive (Eustress) that allows higher performance to some extendo Negative (Distress) that is often called “stress” by default and that may become Chronic

stress, the most dangerous one

• The three steps of stress are:o Alarm reactiono Resistance stageo Exhaustion stage with risk of illness and physical damage

• We are all different coping with stress:o Vulnerability is depending on your profile (ambitious, calm, worried, strong, etc…)

• Life-Changing-Unit scale can be used for quantifying stress level

• Level of stress is also connected to the Maslow’s model and to Hertzberg’s hygiene factors


ConclusionReminders from this training session 2/2Stressors at work:

• There are different situations of stress at work such as conflicting roles, relationship issues, work overload, public presentations, difficulties with customers, job changes, insufficient performance, etc…

• A management role is also activating some additional stressors

• Unpredicted and harassing situations Remediation's and de-stressors:

• Important to protect your work life balance and limit your number of stressors

• You need to focus on what really matters to you and creating value

• Use some tricks to avoid overstressing with public presentation or preparing important meetings

• Avoid using sedative or hypnotics except for emergencies and always ask a physician first


End of presentation


Education

Stress management training highlights