Stress is an inevitable part of life, and it can affect workers across all industries. Employers, in particular, often experience high levels of stress due to the demands of their jobs. Whether it’s dealing with unexpected crises, meeting tight deadlines or managing a team of employees, the pressures of the workplace can be overwhelming at times.
In light of observing Stress Awareness Month during April, it’s crucial to understand the impact that stress can have on employers and their organizations. According to The American Institute of Stress, 83% of employees experience work-related stress, with over 50% of workers suffering from a lack of engagement at work as a result. The study also found that stress in the workplace can lead to decreased productivity, increased absenteeism and a negative impact on personal relationships.
To address this issue, many organizations are turning to tech tools to help relieve stress and improve overall workplace efficiency, but it’s equally important to find the right solution to ease stress from those in leadership roles. In this blog post, we’ll explore how to relieve stress with the right incident management tools.
What Causes Employer Stress?
Employees may assume that the boss has it all together, but the truth is that employers face an enormous amount of stress. Running a business comes with a plethora of responsibilities, and the pressure to meet goals, cultivate a positive workplace culture and ensure everyone is safe and heard can be daunting at times. Here are three top sources of stress for employers:
- Financial Pressure: One of the primary sources of employer stress is financial pressure. From managing budgets to the financial pressure related to liability and risk, the impact of financial outcomes can cause significant stress for employers.
- Employee Management: Another source of stress for employers is employee management. Employers and HR professionals are responsible for hiring, training and managing employees, which is a high-pressure element of leadership. Oftentimes, employers have to deal with interpersonal conflicts between employees and workplace misconduct, which can be time-consuming and challenging to resolve.
- Legal Issues: Legal issues can also be a significant source of stress for employers. Business owners have to comply with a vast array of laws and regulations, including employment laws, tax laws and safety regulations. Failure to comply can result in significant fines or even legal action. The fear of legal repercussions can cause significant stress for employers, leading to sleepless nights and anxiety.
How Work Shield’s Incident Management Platform Can Help
With the many factors contributing to employer stress, it’s time to implement a solution that not only supports employers but organizations as a whole. Work Shield’s full-service third-party incident management platform helps to relieve this pressure and provide peace of mind. Here are three key ways this is accomplished:
- Cost Saving: With financial pressure creating unwanted stress for employers, Work Shield helps relieve this anxiety by providing organizations with 10X ROI or more. Additionally, after partnering with Work Shield for one year, one organization experienced 90% lower costs. Putting this further into perspective, a 500-employee organization sees an average annual total cost of $430,000, but with Work Shield, this expense lowers to $24,000.
- Peace of Mind: Nothing compares to having peace of mind when running an organization and managing a team. Knowing that when harassment or discrimination arises, there is a trusted third party to investigate, manage and resolve the incident from start to finish, employers can focus on other areas of leadership without the burden of wondering when HR will sound the alarms.
- Lowers Reputational Risk: There’s risk of financial burdens, and then there’s the risk of your brand’s reputation. Both are worth protecting. At Work Shield, we take lowering reputational risk seriously. In fact, one organization had an average of 41 incidents reported per year, but after partnering with Work Shield, the number decreased to 11. By lowering the risk of your organization’s reputation, you’ll feel the stress subside.
As we continue to shine a spotlight on Stress Awareness Month, we’re committed to not only supporting healthy workplace cultures where employees are empowered to show up as their best selves, but we support CEOs and those in leadership who are impacted by workplace stress as well. From supporting cost savings to lowering reputational risk, Work Shield is the solution to protect all members of an organization.
