Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By Katie Tejada

Today’s workforce places a major emphasis on self-care and mental health in the workplace, encouraging employers to look for ways to reshape company culture and offer a more welcoming office environment. The good news? While this may sound like a difficult task, the reality is that there are so many ways to accommodate new workers and ensure they avoid burnout and chronic stress.

To help you achieve this, let’s dive into five tips to create a stress-free work environment.

– Establish a safe environment that incorporates activities

Workplaces that don’t know how to unwind and bond may result in a high-stress office dynamic where employees never feel like they can relax, be themselves, or share their feelings. Whether it’s through team-building activities or bonding events, look for ways to incorporate discussions and connections between employees.

Stress management activities are a useful way to achieve this goal. Stress relief games create a safe space for employees to openly express their frustrations and stress in the workplace, while blowing off steam and bonding with colleagues through activities.

– Highlight the importance of regular breaks and movement and build them into employee schedules

Creating a stress-free work environment is difficult if your employees aren’t getting the care they need to thrive. Two essential aspects of a healthy working environment that can reduce stress include more movement and regular breaks.

To tackle the first, consider teaching your employees exercises that they can engage in to boost their energy and squeeze more fitness into their day. This will alleviate stress and anxiety. If you have a nearby gym or space for gym equipment, you can always offer in-house exercise equipment or cover employee gym memberships.

Meanwhile, breaks are essential to mental health, as working for hours on end can lead to burnout over time. As long as employees are productive, let them take the breaks they need to unwind, recover, and re-energize.

– Provide employees with private workspaces for maximum focus

Community spaces are great for collaboration. However, hearing all the chatter of coworkers can slowly affect focus on the task at hand. This can put employees behind on their work and make it difficult to do their job effectively.

Making sure all employees have quiet spaces to operate in so they can work distraction-free will go a long way in reducing the stress felt by your entire workforce.

– Maintain an inviting, organized office space

The last thing you want your employees to experience is dreading going to work. However, if your office environment is highly disorganized or designed in such a way that employees feel trapped, it’s only natural they’re going to feel stressed out along the way.

What does an inviting, stress-free workplace look like? Natural light and comfortable seating create a positive mood in the office. The office spaces should be organized, so that employees aren’t scrambling around to find what they need, and there should be plenty of amenities to keep employees comfortable. When teams feel like they’re being cared for, they’re going to be much more excited to go to work and less stressed about being in the office.

– Keep workplace goals attainable and workloads manageable

Contrary to popular belief, increasing workloads and tightening deadlines won’t increase productivity. It will only stress out and burn out your employees, making them less efficient and satisfied over time.

Thus, one of the most important takeaways is that overloading your employees with too much work is only going to produce stress, not productivity. Take the time to assess the work habits of each of your employees, come up with goals that are achievable for them, and maintain workloads that are manageable for everyone.

– A stress-free work environment is easy to cultivate

Work isn’t always going to be fun, but there’s no reason that employees should feel chronically overwhelmed throughout the entirety of their employment. If you have been looking to improve your workplace culture and your employees’ well-being, these five tips can be seamlessly incorporated into your office environment and workflows to ensure employees are satisfied with their time at your company.

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Katie Tejada is a writer, editor, and former HR professional. She often covers developments in HR, business, recruiting, real estate, law and finance, but also enjoys writing about travel, interiors and events.