stress Archives - Best Money Moves

How to Reduce Stress in the Workplace: 3 Tips to Start

by LizStevens | May 15, 2019 | Blog

How to reduce stress in the workplace: 3 tips to start. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and here are three ways employers can reduce stress, boost morale and attract talent for better employee morale and a more productive workplace.

Forty-eight percent of employees have cried at work when stressed out, according to a recent report by Gin g er. More than 80 percent of employees say they are stressed on a regular basis and 45 percent of workers under 40 are extremely stressed on a daily basis.

Stress has a significant impact on morale and productivity in the workplace. Employees report that they are fatigued, anxious, lacking focus and engagement, irritated with coworkers, producing lower quality work, missing work and missing deadlines.

Less than 30 percent of the workforce seeks professional help for stress. Others cope with stress through self-help books, or worse, a third of employees don’t do anything. More than 90 percent of workers believe their employer should care about their emotional health and 85 percent look at behavioral health benefits when evaluating a new job.

Reducing stress and supporting mental health in the workplace is a win-win. There are three areas where organizations have an opportunity to tackle stress, boost morale and attract talent.

Boost Benefits to Reduce Stress

The good news is that 50 percent of employees are more likely to do something proactive about their emotional and mental health than they were 5 years ago. The bad news is that even if an organization offers behavioral health benefits, employees might not be able to use them. The most common barriers to care are high copays for mental health services and a lack of providers who are in-network.

Employers are getting creative to break through some of these barriers. Ocean Spray, which makes cranberry drinks and sauces, recently announced that it will waive behavioral health copays for its roughly 2,000 employees beginning this summer.

Other organizations are striving to give employees access to more providers who are in-network by adding onsite behavioral health clinics or telemedicine providers that offer on-demand teletherapy or telepsychiatry.

Reduce Stress with Office Environment

There are many elements of office design that can either increase or decrease stress. A recent study found that natural light or views of the outdoors were the most sought after office design perks, outranking onsite cafeterias, fitness centers and onsite childcare. Another study looks at how different colors can affect employee productivity and communicate messages about your brand.

Employers can also create a workplace culture that’s less stressful by encouraging employees to take five minutes a day to be less stressed. Whether it’s spent meditating, taking a walk, journaling, taking deep breaths, grabbing a coffee, or googling ‘ways to reduce stress’, it’s five minutes where employees can tune into themselves and get back to work with renewed focus and productivity. It’s only five minutes and it demonstrates to employees that you genuinely care about their emotional wellbeing, even if they don’t participate.

Flexibility to Reduce Stress

Half of workers report missing at least one day of work per year due to stress, anxiety, or some other emotional or mental health challenge. Organizations that offer more flexibility around scheduling can give employees an opportunity to slow down when they’re stressed out.

Flexible work arrangements provide employees with a certain flexibility in determining when and where they work. The two most common flexible work policies are work from home policies and unlimited paid leave policies. When an employer develops a new flex work policy it’s best to find the mid-point between organizational demands and workforce needs.

More on Stress and Mental Health in the Workplace:

Stress, Money and Millennials: Where’s the Pain Point?

How High is Work-Related Stress and What’s Causing It?

How to Support Mental Health at Work

Zombie Employees: Who Are They and What Do You Need to Know?

What’s the Best Move When Your Employees Are Stressed About Healthcare Costs?

Revealing Research on Financial Stress and Productivity

Stress, Money and Millennials: Where’s the Pain Point?

by ryanwangman | Nov 7, 2018 | Blog

Today is Stress Awareness Day, so it’s no surprise that for many Millennial employees, money (and financial stress) is still top of mind.

A recent Bank of America report, which analyzed the money habits of over 1,000 Millennials, found that the chief concern for respondents was that they weren’t saving enough for future expenses, like emergency funds and retirement. Worrying about career paths and whether they’d be able to afford to buy a home rounded out the top three stressors.

Additionally, three-quarters of respondents said that their generation overspends compared to other generations. Nearly two-thirds of Millennials also believe that their generation is not good at managing money. This is a trend that’s remained consistent throughout each year of the Better Money Habits Millennial Report, with stress levels of 2014 being on par with those of 2018.

But despite what you — and they — might think, Millennials’ money habits are as good as or better than other generations. The report revealed that a majority of the group are saving, budgeting, have a savings goal and feel financially secure. This age group is “young enough to start developing smarter money habits” according to Haley Ross of Bank of America Better Money Habits’ team, but that doesn’t mean they feel secure in their choices. Many doubt their financial security and the financial security of their peers. Sixty-four percent of Millennials believe that their generation does not manage money well and 75 percent feel their generation overspends in comparison to older generations.

This lack of a feeling of financial security may explain why over the past two years, Millennials were more likely than Gen Xers or Baby Boomers to ask for a raise, and 80 percent of those who asked for a pay increase got one. According to Ross, Millennials are getting their financial houses in order which may contribute to their drive to advocate for themselves at work by asking for a raise.

Job Hopping Your Way Out of Financial Stress

About one in four Millennials consider themselves to be “job-hoppers” and expect to have eight or more jobs throughout their lifetime. This isn’t always by choice; a quarter of them reported that they have been laid off at some point. In the long run, this can hurt their future savings — thirty percent of respondents say they haven’t stayed at a job enough to set up a retirement plan — and it can hurt employers’ bottom line too as they work to combat increased turnover.

Companies looking to increase hiring and retention can take a look at what Millennials feel is missing from their current job: A positive work/life balance. Offering benefits and enforcing a culture that supports a better work/life balance may be the key to Millennial employees hearts. Other perks like financial wellness programs, education savings plans and family leave benefits can help boost retention and attract top talent.

According to Ilyce Glink, CEO of the financial wellness platform Best Money Moves and author of a dozen books about money and real estate, says that while Millennials are pushing through their uncertainty over money, they’re also pushing their employers to be innovative around the issue of financial wellness.

“For a long time, companies assumed they were ‘ticking the financial wellness box’ simply by providing a 401k plan, perhaps even with an incentive like a matching program,” Glink explained. “But Millennial employees’ sophistication around financial wellness is growing and as the unemployment rate is at historic lows, companies are looking to increase benefits in this space to meet their employees’ needs.”