Stress prevention
Stress has become a common disease. It can have catastrophic consequences for the affected individuals, but also for your company or organisation if someone needs time off due to stress. Stress is an illness that needs to be taken seriously – and the earlier it’s acknowledged, the better the outcome.
If stress becomes a chronic condition, it can have severe health-related consequences. This is why stress prevention in companies – and life in general – must be a priority. The employee’s well-being is closely connected to the company’s efficiency, which means it’s worth adopting some stress preventing habits and investing in some proven initiatives and methods that reduce stress.
Preventing stress in companies
The best stress prevention is focussing on a healthy work environment, where employees can trust their manager with their challenges – big or small. Then it’s also about not over-working your employees over long periods. In some instances, stress symptoms are ignored for too long, and action only comes when the employee is already absent due to stress.
Therefore, it’s important to have proactive procedures in place – and that requires that both leaders, as well as employees, get some specific tools they can use to handle a specifically stressful period. That could among others be done by regularly hosting workshops and meetings about stress management.
Managing and preventing stress with learning games
Managing stress correctly is one of the most vital assignments of an organisation’s management. Luckily there are a lot of tools available for preventing stress – both for individuals but also for organisations. One of the important elements is to create a space, where open conversation among employees and managers can bloom. For example, by using learning games.
It’s different from employee to employee when something goes from busy to actual stress – and how people react to it can vary too – all based on their specific situation. It’s important that companies can provide information about stress and communicate methods for handling stress.
A lot of stress preventative initiatives are typically aimed at either managers or individuals – like sharing knowledge and having lectures about stress. But stress is also something that should be handled at a group level too – and this is where learning games enter the picture as it’s among one of the best proactive ways to initiate an open dialogue among employees.
In addition, it’s also necessary to continuously work on balancing requirements, expectations, and resources – and it needs to be communicated precisely. One way to approach the subject of the employees’ stress limits is through custom learning games. At Copenhagen Game Lab we’re specialised in developing and customizing games that can help manage stress in your company.
As stress is often seen as abstract and less tangible than other challenges, it might be beneficial to fit your employees with a great set of tools to manage stress.
The learning game Proactive is developed from the Danish IGLO-model that stands for individual, group, leadership, and organisation. The game and the model it’s based on are focussed on how to handle stressful times at work, while also giving an overview of the workplace’s collective efforts at preventing stress.
Here we take a closer look at the different levels within the organisation, where you get an insight into what parts might need improving to enhance employee well-being and decrease stress. Stress doesn’t just appear at an isolated level but rather than correlation between the individual, group, leadership, and organisation. If there’s an imbalance and challenges between these different levels, then it’ll increase stress within the company.
With a game like Proactive can the individual employee learn about their own and each other’s limits and the balance between resources and needs. This way it’ll be easier in the future to adjust to the challenges that the company is having without pressuring and burdening the employees. Games like Proactive allow for a healthy dialogue about stress and limits – and that can remove some of the prejudges that stress is only for the “weak”.
When utilising a custom learning game it minimises stress, which in turn strengthens the employees’ well-being – and vice versa. Here it’s obvious to use learning games about teambuilding and team development, so the employees get closer and know of each other’s strengths and weaknesses – which in turn makes for a stronger team that can withstand challenges like stress.
Creating a culture that prevents stress
Efficient and holistic stress prevention requires effort in all areas of work-life. It might be the psychological work environment that needs development through teambuilding and team development, where the team is strengthened by learning to become more resistant to stress – and creating room for great dialogues.
There are also different ways in which you can improve the employees’ well-being and the synergy between employees and their managers, which can be the groundwork for handling and preventing stress. This can create a collective language, where stress signals are noticed and talked about.
Great stress prevention is about investing in your company and your employees’ future. Because stress can have lasting effects on the entire company if just a single employee is hit by delimitating stress. Meaning that you cannot afford to not create a work environment where stress prevention is a priority.
A focus on stress prevention at the workplace will not only benefit your employees but will also keep employees in the company and create loyalty. Both of which are essential for drawing in qualified people to the company.
