The Consequences of Stress – Quashing Creativity and Competitive Edge

Nov. 26, 2012 - PRLog -- Stress – the disease of the 21st century. Probably there isn’t a single employee who hasn’t been under stress - either at work or at home. The reasons are many and different, and the effects can escalate to the point where one starts to feel totally invalid and incomplete.

In Shevana, we pay attention to the details and the little things that can help the individual company and its employees to overcome the challenges of stress and keep the work-life balance. Mental overload should be followed by adequate rest, which can not be easily done when employees are traveling. Dingy hotel rooms don’t imply cozy homefeel and privacy. So, Shevana believes that the right choice of accommodation can greatly affect quality of life, health and work performance of the individual employee.

In a recent survey, 87% of HR specialists of international companies confirm that the comforts of apartment residence make employees feel happier, appreciated and less frustrated to change when working away from home. All survey respondents believe that provision of suitable accommodation to employees and their families during international assignments is essential for building performance and organizational health.

Shevana.com continuously encourages companies to promote residential wellbeing as a sustainable corporate practice with the foresight to enhance the wellness of employees at the project workplace. Workplace stress is not breaking news. But how companies are handling the issue is worth a gander.

And if you still don’t believe that stress is a serious problem, let us tell you something more about the long-term consequences of stress and how they affect business:

Your employees will  loose their creativity and competitiveness – a Forbes article from May 2012 (http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2012/09/05/e...) says “Chronic stress degrades a long list of capabilities with regard to creativity and innovation. (…)It’s harder to think outside of the box, nimbleness and dexterity take a hit, and the response to sudden change is more difficult to manage.” Your employees may be still productive (even though far from their 110%), but their effectiveness at work will continue dropping. In its annual wellness report, Employee Assistance Program provider ComPsych (http://www.compsych.com/) found that 38% of employees can’t stop thinking about problems like emotional, health, financial and job concerns.

You will lose more than you make - The World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/en/) estimates that stress costs American businesses $300 billion dollars a year.  Stress was the most common cause of long-term sickness absence for both manual and non-manual employees in CIPD’s 2011 Absence Management Survey (http://www.cipd.co.uk/research/_absence-management/).

Bad decisions - “Stress affects how people learn,” says Mara Mather, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California and the lead author of the review. “People learn better about positive than negative outcomes under stress.”
Less and less competitive – when your employees are overexposed to stress, usually they will keep the poker face at work and won’t say a word about it. Who do they take it out on usually? Their families and friends. With time, your employees will start to break their normal social connections and losing family and friends connections is a major issue for every individual. Torn from their community relationships, employees will turn into less and less effective robots, who toke the way to burning out*. Once this happens, they will no longer be productive. If they’re enough devoted, they will just be present in the meeting room, while their thoughts will be wandering somewhere else. Absolutely incapable to deal with their daily routine and tasks, your employees will no longer feel satisfaction from their job and lives. Without the best out of them, your business is at serious risk.

And yes, many employers think that they can easily replace one employee with another. But corporate security and responsibility tell us something else. There is a way to prevent these situations and there is a solution for all problems.

Shevana is looking deep into the corporate culture and knows how to deliver the expected B2B results. We care for employees’ wellbeing, which is also employers’ wellbeing. And with the right tools in place, corporates can achieve even more.

Optimise your accommodation costs and get your employees the best serviced apartments. Give them the homefeel environment, the residential sustainability – at the same prices or even lower than the hotel spent. And watch how the right atmosphere impacts people.

Home is our sanctuary. It’s great to have your refuge wherever you go around the globe. Shevana can do that – you can have your Home away from Home (http://shevana.com). Everywhere.

*burn-out results when individuals have an unhealthy relationship with their work. They put more and more energy into their work to the detriment of their personal life, while deriving less and less satisfaction from it. This state manifests itself through emotional or physical exhaustion, reduced productivity at work and a feeling of depersonalization (i.e., a feeling of insensitivity or impersonal responses to clients).