Managing Stress in the Workplace

The World Health Organization calls it a "worldwide epidemic" and it will cost businesses more than $2 billion this year in losses. Is this some dangerous new virus? No, it is workplace stress. Once you begin your working life, learning to deal with stress on the job will be an important step toward career success. 

If you want to excel at your job, it's going to be important for you to complete tasks successfully and on time. However, there will be times in your career when a surplus of work and looming deadlines combine to create an unusually stressful situation. 

 

Learning how to manage stress is a vital yet often overlooked job skill. Letting stress build up unabated can be unhealthy-literally. The average loss of-work time due to stress is 25 days. Doctors say that stress can cause any number of ailments, including ulcers, migraine headaches, and high blood pressure. Stress can even be deadly--every year in Japan, numerous cases of "Karoshi", or death from overwork, are reported. 

The entire profession of accounting is under a great deal of stress at many points throughout the year. This can be brought on by client deadlines related to tax filings, earnings releases, merger or disposition activity, or shareholder demands. Clients expect accountants and consultants to go about their business quickly, and deliver solutions on a real-time basis. 

 

So how can you learn to manage stress? As stress on the job has increased (surveys suggest stress has doubled in the past 15 years) so has the field of stress management. Stress management experts have learned that all people should establish a method of relaxation that they can turn to when stress gets to be too much.

Everyone has different ways of relaxing, so your relaxation regimen will be unique. Exercise is a proven stress-buster -- many people run, walk or lift weights to relax. Isometric exercise, like squeezing a tennis ball, is a popular stress reduction tool. Some people even practice isometrics while driving to and from the office. 

 

If you find that stress is threatening your productivity on the job and your health, work with your employer to address the causes of your stress. Human resources professionals estimate the cost to search for, hire, and train the average employee to be anywhere from $2,000 to $13,000 therefore employers would rather try to reduce stress in the workplace than lose an employee.

 

In some ways, stress is a sign of career success -- as you progress in your career, you take on more responsibility, resulting in more things to worry about. The leaders of the corporate world are those who prevail over the stress of responsibility.