COVID-19 Pandemic Stress among Employees? Ways to Manage & Support

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused stress for everyone and impacted the life of people globally. Such stress increase troubles for the employees who are already surrounded by various other stressors in their life. For example the employees who are at the higher risk of getting through the infections can find it difficult to work in such pandemic situations.

There may be many stress factors existing you can’t control as an employee. However, you can take certain steps to make their life easier during the COVID-19. Here are some of the ways to help them:

Amend your Sick Leave Policy

Come up with an inclusive sick leave policy specially considering all aspects of COVID-19. The employees will have to go through a quarantine period of 14 days if they feel any flu like symptoms. Remember the COVID-19 patient may remain sick for many weeks depending upon the complications so your inclusive sick leave policy will help them by giving them job assurance & emotional well-being support for the difficult times.

Organize Virtual Social Events to Lower Stress Levels

Virtual social events can be a great way to reduce stress of remote employees to keep them connected with the team. This will reduce the amount of stress and anxiety they might be feeling in isolation.

Share Important Updates Comprehensively

Always keep your employees updated about the important company updates in a comprehensive manner using accessible communication mediums. Consider giving important updates to your employees in a written format as the written information can be read any number of times and responded after processing it completely. You can use visual mediums of communication to convey the important tips about the pandemic so people gets engaged quickly.

Digital Mental Well-being Resources

Being mentally fit when you’re locked in your home owing to the pandemic becomes very challenging. As an employer, you must prioritize the mental well-being of your employees. Since employees cannot travel to physical resources to stay mentally fit, provide them with access to digital resources on emotional & financial wellness. You can also consider providing them mindfulness training through an online app or virtual sessions to reduce the level of stress.

Consistency

Employees have left their work desks and left behind their normal set of rules during this global pandemic as they have started working from home to avoid virus spread. So try engaging them to work being at home with a daily routine similar to what they used to follow in the office. It will keep them less stressed as most of the things got replicated in the virtual environment to avoid stressful changes.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, stress cannot be avoided completely and it remains everlasting, especially when you are dealing with such a horrible epidemic. You need to act thoughtfully by putting resources, tools, infrastructure, system rules and support together to diminish stress in order to keep your employees significantly well and productive.

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