What Helps People Who are Stressed with Work

 

Much of my work outside of clinical practice is working with people in healthcare, human services, education, and public services. I have spent the last few years working consistently with teams that are overwhelmed and stressed. Yesterday, I had a conversation online with a team and I was giving them some tips on how to manage what they were dealing with. I received a very moving thank you note after our time together and I want to share some what they found helpful. I know many of you are struggling at your jobs and I hope you can take something from this blog.

While listening to the team, I heard about the impact of the pandemic intensified by staff shortages, feelings of anxiety and panic they have not experienced before, and distress that is amplified by ongoing uncertainties and witnessing of trauma and emotional breakdowns in people they are serving, people at home, as well as staff around them. All while having confrontations at work from the public they are serving about masks, vaccines, and political issues.

What helps in the face of this?

Providing support to your teams is particularly difficult because you may not have mental health expertise to provide effective support.  Please bring in an experienced mental health professional to provide strategic guidance. You need to build confidence and credibility in addressing what your teams are experiencing. I have been doing this kind of work with organizations for a long time. First be sure you have safety because when people open up, they are often discussing deeply uncomfortable feelings and you do need to know how to stay with them in that. 

Here are 10 tips that are helpful: 

1- Listen. When you listen to someone, I want you to give them your full attention, eyes, ears, and heart. Listening is a way of holding emotions. It helps us carry the load.

2- Validate. Think about you heard. Feel what you heard. Let yourself connect to the person you are listening to.

3- Do not dump more responsibilities on the people showing up for work. If you are short staffed, cut back on what you offer. Do not expect people to do more. They are often working at capacity.

4- Change what you do from the top rather than asking people to do more on the frontline.

5- All hands-on deck. Have people work in teams rather than isolation. Rethink how that can creatively happen in your workplace.

6- DEBRIEF daily.  An effective strategy is to have people in 2 person partnerships for debriefing. One person talks for 10 minutes about their day at work, it is safe to say anything, the other person listens, and then switch. The listener does not comment, they listen- quietly. Then they get a turn to unload.   Do not leave people to carry all this without a way to debrief. 

7- Many people are experiencing high levels of anxiety.  This is a normal response to what they are experiencing.  Provide calming support, stability and structure, rather than chaos and unrealistic expectations for your teams. 

8- Encourage people to have quiet breaks while working. Time to decompress.  Offer trainings on anxiety, depression, and effective self-care.

9- No one can respond to everything that is coming at them. Co-create expectations and check that the expectations are reasonable. Is this realistic? Stretching yourself to the point of breaking or injury means the expectations are unreasonable.

10- Give yourself a break. You can use your boundaries to support yourself and those around you. 

Please know that listening first is most important. Before you offer programs or trainings, listen. Offer trainings but do not overwhelm your staff with information. Pace matters.

Building a culture of self-care, emotional wellbeing, and caring community takes time, intention, and strategic vision.  There is lots of room to be creative while doing this.