Stress Management

Introduction

According to The American Institute of Stress, work is the greatest source of stress within individuals, with 94% of American workers reporting having experienced work-related stress on a regular basis . In recent decades, the research performed on stress has intensified. Stress Management entails many different methods and techniques designed to alter self-behaviour in order to better manage stress. .

Stress is often categorized as either Chronic or Acute. Chronic stress, which is also known as long-term stress, is not something that can be fixed overnight or even within a few days. Chronic stress is usually caused by chronic illnesses, traumatic events, and/or poor financial situations. It usually requires taking serious measures, consulting a psychologist, and sadly is hard to manage consistently . Acute stress, on the other hand, which is also known as short-term stress, is characterized by behavioural symptoms that are affected by factors within a short period of time . In other words, if proper techniques and methods are used, the causes and symptoms of acute stress can be properly managed. The issue is that, as mentioned before, the workplace is the largest source of stress within individuals. It is far too common for stress in the workplace to persistently reoccur, which can then have long-term effects. Acute stress can produce several physical and psychological symptoms for members of a team within a project's lifetime. These symptoms can severely affect their ability to work effectively as well as affect their colleagues . The increasing drive to support individuals who suffer from stress-related issues is a clear sign of how important it is for project managers to address acute stress issues within their teams.

The purpose of this article is to provide a detailed explanation of the different internal and external causes of short-term (acute) stress in a project team, as well as describe the current methods and techniques used to manage short-term stress as an individual within a project team. It will also critically analyze the methods and techniques that are currently most prominent in stress management.

What is Stress?

Stress is defined by the Mental Health Organization as "...the feeling of being overwhelmed or unable to cope with mental or emotional pressure" . While focusing on individual stress, there are two different causes; internal and external causes. Internal causes of stress, such as overthinking and low self-esteem, come from within individuals and are said to be the most common cause of stress . External factors such as issues with colleagues, poor working environment, and pressure from managers, can also play a large role in increasing stress, especially during projects. These internal and external factors cause individuals to possibly have a wide range of symptoms including headaches, insomnia, and anxiety. The symptoms that individuals experience, much like Covid-19, can be very different from person to person. For example, men and women usually experience a different range of symptoms during a stressful period. Overall, stress is not healthy for any individual and can cause an unproductive and poor working environment in a project setting. Below is a table outlining examples of internal and external causes as well as the symptoms and effects they have . Notice again, there is a large variation in symptoms as it highly depends on the individual as well as the situation that individual is in.

Figure 1: Internal and external causes of stress; Psychological and physical symptoms of stress; Effects stress can have on work.

Stress Management Methods in a Project Team

Although some stress at work and in projects is to be expected, it is part of a project manager's job to manage and support stress amongst team members. In order to prevent team members from becoming stressed as well as avoid the effect stress has on their working habits, project leaders must focus on implementing stress management techniques in their teams. The two primary stress management techniques are first, managing their own stress and secondly, understanding their team members. These two techniques, which are also relevant to team members themselves, should be performed before attempting any other techniques, as they lay a strong foundation for stress management in a project team .

Figure 1: Project leaders should practice managing their own stress as well as understanding their team members, before applying other stress management techniques to the project.

1: Manage your own stress

A project manager's first task is to be able to manage and cope with their own stress. Team leaders play a huge role in the mood and mentality of their team members. They are essentially the team members' role models in a project. How can the team members achieve stress equilibrium if their leader cannot do it themselves? This is part of the reason a project manager requires strong technical and managerial skills as well as excellent intrapersonal skills. Having strong intrapersonal skills allows individuals to manage and cope with emotional and stressful periods without affecting the people around them in negative ways. If project leaders learn how to better deal with their own stress, it will allow them to better support and manage the stress amongst their team members.

2: Understand team members

In order to properly support and manage the stress of someone around you, you usually have to know them first. How an individual copes with stressful situations differs from person to person. This is strongly the case in a project team and why it is so important for a project manager to understand each member. Understanding signs of stress within their team members requires being intently involved in their work lives. This includes knowing the member's personalities, workloads, and behaviours in stressful situations. The better a project manager knows their team and understands how they behave individually as well as interact amongst each other, the more successful they will be in managing the team's stress levels. Understanding a team member's personality will allow the project manager (even other team members) to spot signs of stress early on, and subsequently, support them . A research project at the University of New South Wales, which interviewed almost 6,000 people across 77 organizations, found that the single greatest influence on profitability and productivity within an organization "is the ability of leaders to spend more time and effort developing and recognizing their employees” .

After a project manager is able to manage their own stress levels as well as understand their team members, there are many other techniques that can be implemented. Following stress management methods and principles allow the project leaders to better manage the stress levels of their team members with the end objective of creating a happy and productive work environment. Based on several research articles, below are the six most common and effective techniques for stress management in a project team :

Properly distribute workload

Properly distributing the workload amongst team members entails: distributing the workload evenly amongst all teammates, assigning tasks to the appropriate members, and ensuring the workload will not cause the team to be overworked. Distributing the project tasks evenly will allow each member to feel included, with the ability to show quality work and collaborate, with no bias from the manager. Assigning the appropriate tasks requires understanding which members have the ability and skills to perform the task with efficiency and quality. Being assigned a task that is completed out of your scope can put a lot of stress on the individual, especially if they are not guided or given support from the project leader. This principle also applies to a workload that is too much for the individual to handle. Assigning a task to a team member that is too large can easily begin to cause that individual to become stressed and evidently not perform the task with the needed quality.

Discourage multi-tasking

A study done by the American Psychological Association suggests that multitasking "undermines our efficiency" especially for "complicated or unfamiliar tasks" . Multitasking also exhausts individuals more rapidly which can result in stressful situations at work. This is why many project managers are beginning to encourage their employees to prioritize their tasks rather than continue to bounce between tasks. Helping team members prioritize their work, rather than multitask, ensures the team members stay focused, perform tasks with quality, and lowers the risk of stressful situations.

Establish a transparent environment

A study performed by Slack, the business communication platform, found that out of 40,000 employees, transparency was the largest contributing factor to their overall happiness as an employee . As mentioned before, project managers are the team's role models, which makes it essential for the team to trust their leaders as well as each other. Establishing a transparent environment within a project will ensure trust, encourage better work performance, improve efficiency, and provide a comfortable and reliable environment for the team members. This will remove the external causes of stress for individuals for example not knowing what the scope, goal, and deadline of a project are.

Mandate time off

An very important, and often overlooked, aspect of working life is taking quality time away from the work setting. This applies to vacation days as well as taking coffee and lunch breaks. Employees tend to get so involved in their projects that they forget the significance of taking their thoughts away from work. This could be due to external causes of stress including pressure from managers, unrealistic deadlines, or simply too much workload. Not taking time off of work can also be due to internal causes of stress such as workaholism, which is a mental condition also known as "work addiction." Mandating time off, not just encouraging it, will ensure that team members relax and reset their busy minds, allowing for time with family, exercise, and other essential activities outside of work. Research conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that taking mandatory vacation days results in improved productivity, lower stress, and overall better mental health .

Encourage empathy and compassion

The same research also found that the ability of a leader to be compassionate and to "understand people’s motivators, hopes, and difficulties" had the strongest correlation with performance and engagement . It is unrealistic to leave your entire personality at the door once you enter your workplace. Well-known companies such as Google, Unity Technologies, and Apple, are becoming increasingly attractive for job seekers as they all ensure a happy and free working environment. Different methods can be practiced to encourage empathy and compassion in a project setting, however, it is as simple as being kind to the people around you.

Offer support and resources

Yet another essential task for a project manager is to ensure that their team has the appropriate support as well as the adequate resources to perform the work with quality. If these two principles are established within a project team, the employees will feel more comfortable reaching out to their manager for guidance or knowledge on a certain task. This will not only relieve stress surrounded by not knowing something regarding the project but also create an exchange of information and knowledge amongst the team, which will evidently benefit the project outcome. The research performed at the University of New South Wales, which was mentioned earlier, also found that a leader's ability to "create the right support mechanism to allow people to be as good as they can be" had the greatest correlation with productivity and profitability .

Limitations and Conclusion

Although there is an increasing drive to research and practice stress management in the workplace, it will always be difficult to implement methods that are effective for every team member. Each individual has unique attitudes, behaviours, and personalities, especially when they are subjected to stressful situations. It is often the case that individuals are stressed for reasons outside of the workplace, and as mentioned before, it is unrealistic for people to leave their personalities and outside life at the door. For example, even if a project leader were to mandate time off, some team members who suffer from work addiction (workaholics) would not benefit from simply taking time off. Work addiction is an example of something that can cause long-term stress which requires more in-depth therapy sessions and stress management methods. The methods outlined in this article have shown a strong influence on a project teams' productivity and overall happiness. However, employees can not easily manage and/or cope with long-term causes of stress such as family issues and traumatic events just from their manager showing some compassion. These more serious issues of stress are likely to have a negative effect on working habits and environments, and most likely require seeing an expert, such as a psychologist or psychiatrist. This is why it is so vital for project leaders, as well as each team member, to educate themselves on stress management. It will allow them to better manage their own stress and evidently improve the way they support others. It will also help individuals identify when another colleague is in need of more serious mental health support.

The expanding range of research projects focusing on the mental health and stress factors of employees illustrates the dire need to practice stress management techniques in the workplace amongst the project teams. The external and internal causes of stress at the workplace are usually short-term (acute stress) however can build up to have long-term effects on individuals. When not managed correctly, acute stress at work can have increasingly negative effects on an employee's mental health and can ultimately influence the productivity, profitability, and outcome of a project. It is very important for project leaders to address these issues and focus on implementing proper stress management techniques in order to keep a happy, yet productive, working environment.

Annotated bibliography

Harard Business Review - Rich Fernandez - 2016. "Help Your Team Manage Stress, Anxiety, and Burnout."

The article uses productive and profitability KPIs to support the impact of stress management within a team. It covers the stress management methods that are most successful and most correlated in terms of project output. The article highlights that an employee's state of well-being is the foundation of a high-performing team. Rich Fernandez is the CEO of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, which is a nonprofit organization developed by Google that offers mindfulness and emotional intelligence programs to organizations. He has written several articles emphasizing the correlation between mental health and profitability within large corporations.

David Bunce, Michael A. West - 1996 “Stress Management and Innovation Interventions at Work”

This research article concluded that studies on stress management within a workplace should focus on process variables and project outcomes. It also highlighted that companies allowing for innovation in the workplace showed a promise in addressing stress.

Wounds UK - Vol 3 - 2017. "The Impact of Stress on a Team and How to Manage it".

Wounds UK's mission is to deliver innovative educational materials, including practice-based guidance for, wound management. This article dives into a project manager's role within a team. It describes what principles and methods a project manager can perform in order to manage as well as prevent the causes of stress in their team. It contains many research publications regarding stress within leadership roles.

Forbes - Sally Percy - 2021. “How Can Leaders Help Their Teams To Better Manage Stress?”

This article outlines different methods that a team leader should follow in order to manage team stress. Sally Percy touches base upon the different resources and tools that a leader can use in order to optimize their way of dealing with team dynamics. It bases its outline on many research papers, including one from New South Wales that highlights many statistical results which support a leader's need to understand their team's causes of stress .