The Role of Managers
Leadership plays an important role in reducing employee stress. Here are some things you can do to provide effective leadership.
Fasten Your Own Seatbelt First
Your job is just as stressful as your employees', if not more so. And you can't be an effective manager if you are suffering from the negative consequences of stress yourself. Take care of yourself. Pay attention to nutrition, exercise, and health, and learn and practice stress management techniques.
Get Others Involved
You don't have to do this alone. Encourage employees to help make the call center a better place to work. Not only will this help you keep your workload manageable, employee engagement is a key to effective stress reduction efforts. Learn more about how to set up an Employee Advisory Board to support programs that reduce stress.
Develop Leadership Skills
Open, responsive, and transparent leadership can help reduce employee stress. You may be able to improve some working conditions in your call center simply by continuing to develop your own leadership skills. If you can, invest in continuing education for yourself and other leaders, especially in “soft skills” like communication and people management. Even for seasoned managers, efforts to improve leadership can pay off in reductions in employee stress.
Be a Champion
As a manager, you have the ability to influence the culture and priorities of your workplace. Use that influence to be a champion for employee wellness, health and safety, and other efforts to help with stress. From your words, to your actions, to your attitude, what you do matters. So use that power to help keep people paying attention to stress and finding ways to make the call center a better place to work.
