The many faces of stress

Frontline employees seem to get a brunt of consumer difficulty. Anyone who has experience in retail can testify to that. However it’s not just simply a case of consumer conflict management that has workers grabbing the stress ball.

      Types of stress

On many occasions it’s the internal conflict between the individual and their role that is producing stress wrinkles. Disparities between personal ethics/values and job requirements evoke strain. Employees are squeezed between a rock and a hard place of whether to break the rules to satisfy consumers. Not to mention, stress induced by the perpetual circuit of overworked staff. 

      Consequences

The consequence of this is a cycle of failure and mediocrity. Literally, that is the name of the theory behind emotional labour and stress. This so called cycle consists of dissatisfied workers, low performance rates, poor service delivery, dissatisfied consumers, poor brand perception and consequently financial loss. As you can see it’s fairly severe domino effect.

      Prevention

The question you must all be pondering – how do you avoid this? Start off with your hiring process. With intense interviews, personality testing and trials you are able to hand select staff consistent with your business values and job requirements. Enable these fresh-faced staff with product and organisational knowledge. Finally, give them a motivational push on the regular – something as simple as verbal recognition. I’m sure most employees wouldn’t say no to a bonus too.

Yes we realise this isn't specifially marketing or design related. Yet workplace stress is applicable across all industries, and is something that shouldn't be left unturned.