How to Manage WorkPlace Stress – 3 Tips for Women

It’s Friday and you’ve had a stressful week at work and are longing for the week end. Phew, thank goodness Friday is here and you dash home thankfully and very tired.

But somehow the week end you had planned doesn’t quite cut the mustard. Your longed for rest and relaxation doesn’t materialise and you find yourself tetchy and irritated for much of the time. People around you are getting on your nerves and maybe you find yourself snapping at those close to you – kids, your partner or friends

You’ve taken that workplace stress home with you and it’s infecting other areas of your life.

3 Tips for Managing Work Place Stress for Women

It’s so easy to do. We know the research – even high fliers at work still end up doing more of the household chores than men (if the stats are to be believed). This is frequently an issue for women who are working with me, either one to one or on my women’s courses; it seems getting the work-life balance right is harder sometimes than getting that promotion!

So here are a few of my tips that have worked with other women.

• Finish work properly.
  By which I mean clear your desk, pack away any files and leave everything ready for Monday. Don’t take work home to sit reproachfully in your briefcase unless you are absolutely sure you a) really have to, and b) will be able to do it. Otherwise you literally have your work at home scuppering your chances of proper relaxation. I know at a certain level working at home is inevitable, but see if you can’t schedule this into the week nights and keep your week ends sacrosanct . You will be more productive the rest of the week for having a proper break. And leaving that desk primed for Monday is sending you a subtle but strong psychogical message.
• Share the chores.
  With a little more  probing it often emerges that women do have partners who are happy to share the chores but there is a undertone of  ‘they won’t do it properly so I’ll only have to do it again. It’s quicker to do it myself‘. If this sounds like you try to adopt the ‘good enough’ principle with some household tasks. Good enough means being good enough, not perfect. Don’t add to your stress by placing excessively high demands on yourself and others. Sometimes we can get a bit of victim mentality as we dash around trying to do it all…
• Take a guilt break.
  Being superwoman all week end (as well as all week!) means you’re on a hiding to nothing and probably quite difficult to be around. Make sure you do something over the week end that is just for you, that helps you recharge your battery. It may be tea in bed with the newspapers for half an hour; it may be a long phone conversation with a friend. Often it’s not a big thing but I find even when women do make time for themselves they tend to feel a bit guilty about it. Men do a lot of rushing around at week ends too. The difference I find is that men don’t tend to have the same feelings of guilt if they can’t do it all, or when they have a game of golf, watch the football, go to an exhibition. Whereas we women can get really good at beating ourselves up.
  Work out what it is you need to do to keep yourself on top form and then make time to do it! (If that’s on your too difficult pile take a look at What Stops You being Assertive?)

Life is a balance, sometimes a very delicate balance, of managing our needs and the needs of others. Remember, though, however many responsibilities you have at work and home, everyone needs a break, space to recharge. Make sure you build some time in for that, your essential maintenance down time! Happy Week end!

Photo Credit: Craig Hauger

Is Presenteeism Hindering Women’s Success?

When I left the corporate world over 9 years ago no one actually used the word ‘presenteeism‘. We  talked lots about absenteeism but over working? It didn’t feature in discussions yet it was there.

Apparently, the term “presenteeism” was coined by Professor Cary Cooper, a psychologist specializing in organisational management at Manchester University in the UK. It generally means people turning up for work when sick and is especially prevalent now as more people are fearful of losing their jobs in the current poor economic climate.

The Midnight Mail (Male?)

There have always been incidents of being present at work (and not necessarily working), and we all know the folk who send out work emails out at 2am to illustrate how dedicated they are to the cause. I even know of someone who set them on auto to go out then so it looked as if he was madly working away all the hours available!

The trouble is it becomes the corporate norm and suddenly people, men or women, who are not doing it are viewed as lacking in commitment, even when the organisation officially disowns the practice. I don’t have a gender breakdown, but generally speaking this is not a game women can play, as they are usually the ones with caring responsibilities; neither is it a game that women want to play.

Part Time Gain

What I do know is, that when I recruited part time staff (always women as it happens) they worked as hard and as productively as my full time staff and actually achieved more, hour by hour than their whole time equivalents. I have also watched members of staff who didn’t have to rush home at close of play, dawdle through parts of their day, secure in the knowledge that they could stay after normal hours and gain kudos for being ‘committed players’.

No Winners

The sad fact is no one really wins when this culture is prevalent. Sick people do not work well and get sicker; people feel compelled to stay late and work too long and get stressed as their life gets out of kilter; and women are at a disadvantage because even if it were desirable, they tend not to be part of the late clique and get labelled as not committed. And what we should be doing is questioning the whole idea of presenteeism and its role in corporate life

A very senior female executive confided in me recently:

“I have given up the idea of trying to get a balance in my life. So many of the meetings don’t even begin until after 5pm. I’m paid a lot to do this job and I m now resigned to never getting home before 8pm most week day evenings unless I plan it in advance“.

The role models need to be at the top, modelling a good work and home balance. And if the ‘top’ were more gender balanced, we might just see some more sensible hours. No one can give of their best 12 hours a day on a regular basis; eventually folk will burn out and women (and so e men) who want to have a life outside of work, or who have to be home, will be disadvantaged and companies will lose excellent staff.

Photo Credit: Chris Johnson

How to Stay Motivated When You Hate Your Job? Tip 2

Don’t stop planning for the next step. It’s a cliche but it’s true:

Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.

When the job market isn’t buoyant it’s tempting to sit back and think there’s nothing you can do. If you’re not careful you’ll get very comfortable gently moaning away about your lot to sympathetic clucks from friends, only to be caught unawares when an opportunity arises!

So my second tip is -

MAKE SURE YOUR RESUME/CV IS COMPLETELY UP TO DATE

Don’t wait until a job appears and then go into panic mode to get your act together; take the opportunity now. 

And if you’ve never considered it before, how about getting a professionally written resume? In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t costs a fortune and could be the difference between getting your application onto the interview pile and not.

Plus, a good professional will ask you some of the searching questions that will stand you in good stead at interview. Obviously, CVs should be tailored to the particular requirements of any job you’re applying for but it’s always good to have a base line to work from.

Professional Support

If you want to find out more and get some good tips on CV writing, I recommend you drop by the site of Julie Walraven. You can find her by clicking here. She’s based in the US but does most of her work on line. Or swap with a friend. You write hers and vice versa. Seek advice from knowledgeable friends, making it clear that you want an honest opinion. This is important.

Once you have begun to take some action, to take control of your own future, you’ll begin to feel better about yourself and your confidence levels will rise. Which, by the way, makes you a much more attractive proposition to a prospective employer!

Stress at Work

Some research into stress at work was conducted on behalf of OPP by Explorandum, an independent market research company; 1,165 line managers completed an online questionnaire. They represented all sizes of organisation and were based throughout the UK.

Impact of stress

Respondents were asked whether they achieve more, less, or the same at work when they are stressed. Their answers highlight the need to prioritise managing stress in the workplace:

• 47% of respondents say that they achieve less

• This increases to 55% for people working in organisations with more than 5000 employees and to 56% for the finance sector

• However, 9% of respondents say that they achieve more. This suggests that, if managed well, stress can be a motivator

• Younger respondents are more likely to respond in this way – 16% of 16-24 year old respondents said they achieve more when stressed

• Female respondents appear to be slightly better at managing stress than their male counterparts

• Whereas 50% of males achieve less when stressed, this decreases to 42% for females

• The impact also appears to relate to the amount of time people have been with an organisation

• Achieving less when stressed increases from 35% for people who have been with the organisation for less than a year to 53% for those who have been there for six to ten years and 48% for those who have been there for ten years or more.

The managers report that the most significant impacts of stress on their staff are:

• Reduced morale (61%)

• Reduced performance (58%)

Other impacts are:

• Absence (40%)

• Team conflict (38%)

• Increased employee turnover (22%)

There are some gender differences

• Males are twice as likely as females to ignore stress and avoid tasks

• Females are more likely to discuss their stress and to spend time planning