Stress & Work Life Balance
“Put First Things First”
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Stephen Covey
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Introduction |
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Workshop Session Plan |
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Key Learning Outcomes |
Workshop Focus:
The workshop is an excellent workshop to develop skills and techniques in understanding and releasing stress in a workplace setting. The workshop explores wellbeing as an important fulcrum in re-balancing participants. It aids in understanding work/life balance and how each participant is responsible for their wellbeing. The focus is on happiness as a state of mind and how to create positive happy workplaces. Participants learn that stress can lead to conflict which if unchecked can grow into bullying, particularly if power issues present themselves.
Duration:
Half and full day workshop
Target Audience:
Staff and management
Expected Outcomes:
Participants have a raised awareness of how to practically manage stress and to care for other staff and managers. The workshop provides life skills and participants can practice at home, as the home and work are linked and affect both spheres of life.
Introduction
Stress and Work Life Balance is an essential workshop for staff that are experiencing stress at work. Causes of stress include: customer contact, work overload, lack of control, uncertainty, change, dealing with difficult people and fearful states of mind to name a few. As we have all experienced, people handle stress differently some will internalise stress, suppress their feelings, project it onto others, get angry, blow up, be curt and snappy and can be interpreted as rude or difficult. Stress can block natural empathy and further conflict can escalate.
The workshop is excellent for assisting staff to learn how to understand, release stress effectively and empower themselves to create positive workplaces. Stress is a serious health issue and is increasing in society given increasing time pressures, lower skills levels, changing environments and personal health imbalances.
The 2012 Australian Psychological Society Report on stress and wellbeing for Australians, provided key statistics as follows:
Overall, while the pattern of findings was largely consistent with those reported in 2012 and 2011, the key findings of the Stress and Wellbeing Survey 2013 indicated that Australians had significantly lower levels of wellbeing and significantly higher levels of stress and distress, and depressive and anxiety symptoms than in previous years.
Levels of stress and distress
• In 2013, Australians reported significantly higher levels of stress and distress compared with findings in 2012 and 2011.
• Significantly more Australians reported moderate to severe levels of distress compared with findings of 2012.
• Similar to previous years’ findings, younger adults continued to report much higher levels of stress and distress compared with older Australians.
Experience of depressive and anxiety symptoms
• In 2013, Australians reported significantly higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms compared with findings in 2012 and 2011.
• Almost one in seven Australians reported depressive symptoms in the severe to extremely severe range.
• More than one in ten Australians reported anxiety symptoms in the severe to extremely severe range.
• Similar to previous years’ findings, younger adults continued to report much higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms compared with older Australians.
• Unemployed Australians and students reported the highest levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms.
Causes of stress
• Financial issues remain the leading cause of stress amongst Australians with more than half of Australians identifying finances as a cause of stress
• Almost one in four Australians reported mental health issues as a source of stress, up slightly from last year
• Family and financial issues were the tied leading sources of stress for women while the leading source of stress for men was issues related to personal finance
• Similar to last year’s findings, the prevalence of most causes of stress significantly decreased as people got older.
Strategies for managing stress
• Watching TV or movies, spending time with friends or family, listening to music, focusing on the positives and reading remain the most frequently cited strategies used for managing stress.
• Significantly more Australians reported visiting social networking sites, eating, or sleeping more to help manage their stress compared with findings in 2012.
• Similar to last year findings, four in five Australians rated their use of stress management strategies as moderately to highly effective.
Impact of stress on physical and mental health
• Similar to findings in 2012, just over seven in ten Australians reported that current stress was having at least some impact on physical health, with almost one in five reporting that current stress was having a strong to very strong impact on physical health.
• In contrast to findings in 2012, significantly more Australians were reporting that current stress was having at least some impact on their mental health with one in five reporting that current stress was having a strong to very strong impact on mental health.
• Similar to findings in 2012, Australians who had recently gone through a family or relationship breakdown were significantly more likely than the rest of the sample of Australians to perceive their stress levels as having a strong impact on their mental and physical health.
Workplace stress and wellbeing
• Working Australians reported significantly lower overall workplace wellbeing in 2013 (as measured by the Workplace subscale of the UK wellbeing scale) compared with findings in 2012 and 2011.
• Working Australians reported significantly lower levels of job satisfaction compared with previous years.
• Working Australians reported significantly lower levels of interest in their job compared with 2012.
• Similar to previous years’ findings, almost half of working Australians rated issues in the workplace as a source of stress.
Refer link for further information. http://www.psychology.org.au/Assets/Files/Stress%20and%20wellbeing%20in%20Australia%20survey%202013.pdf
Note: The survey was not a representative survey where all Australians had an equal chance of selection, caution should be exercised when interpreting the data. The report indicates that due to the survey only being available online, it is acknowledged that while participants were matched against APS statistics on relevant demographic variables, the sample is restricted to online data gathering processes only.
Workshop Session Plan
Introduction
The workshop is an excellent workshop to develop skills and techniques in understanding and releasing stress in a workplace setting. The challenge to dealing with stress is understanding what drives it. Fear is always at the base of stress and it is important for participants to become aware of what triggers stress in them. The workshop facilitates self understanding and provides suggested strategies in overcoming stress, understanding conflict and how it creates stress, seeing stress as a problem to be solved and utilising better ways to communicate. The workshop explores wellbeing as an important fulcrum in re-balancing participants. It aids in understanding work/life balance and how each participant is responsible for their wellbeing. The focus is on happiness as a state of mind and how to create positive happy workplaces. Some staff may not like what they are doing but they can contribute to positive wellbeing through a change in attitude and learning to release stress is positive healthy ways. Work/life balance is a discipline and management can consider ways to reinforce this message to ensure that staff don’t burn out or develop mental health issues. Under the bullying legislation there is a legal obligation on management and staff to ensure that bullying does not ensue. Stress can lead to conflict which if unchecked can grow into bullying, particularly if power issues present themselves. So it is important to undertake workshops that deal with stress and raise awareness of how to manage stress as it arises and to generally care for staff and managers, as part of a wellbeing strategy. It is a useful workshop and one that participants can practice at home, as the home and work are linked and affect both spheres of life.
Workshop rules
Stress and Conflict
- What is the definition of stress?
- What are the causes of stress?
- Strategies to overcome stress
- Stress relief techniques – practical techniques that can be done at work
- Understanding conflict, problem solving and effective communications to de-escalate fear
Wellbeing and Happiness
- Happiness – what is it?
- Positive stress free workplaces – how can we create them?
- Experiencing positive emotions: laughter and clowning around session
Summing up of the workshop and feedback.
Key Learning Outcomes
- To develop a deeper understanding of what is stress
- To understand the causes of stress
- To learn strategies to overcome stress and apply them in the workplace
- To learn and practice a variety of stress relief and release techniques that can be applied before/after work or at work
- To learn critical thinking about stress and how work/life balance issues
- To understand personality type, orientation to stress and unhealthy stress levels
- To learn visualisation to decrease stress and to use visualisation for preferred outcomes
- To learn positive thinking to assist in reducing or removing stress
- To learn to identify the problem that is causing the stress
- To learn communication skills to ensure clear comprehension of situation and prevent conflict
- To understand the importance of wellbeing for body, mind and spirit
- To learn positivity with a focus on happiness
- To experience laughter and clowning to enhance stress release and feelings of happiness