The Business Stress Factor: How Control Can Lead To Calm

We all deal with stress from time to time.?? It's a way of coping with forces on the inside or the outside world affecting an individual. However, excessive stress in the workplace can have undesirable consequences on mental and physical health.

Research shows that control is often the biggest factor in whether people feel stressed out or invigorated when facing a challenge.

The more control people have over their work, the greater their job satisfaction, the higher their work quality, and the lower their stress level.

Drivers deal with stress from traffic, delivery timing ("Am I going to be late?"), bad weather, aggressive and rude people on the road or difficult customers, long and irregular hours and lack of sleep. Add the responsibility for a piece of equipment and products worth tens of thousands of pounds, and you have a recipe for stress.

Obviously we can see the impact on drivers, but how can this impact the company?

Quite simply, if employees experience a disproportionate amount of stress, the stress factor will greatly influence a company's performance, both from an economic and reputational point of view.

This can include, but is not limited to absenteeism and decreased driver retention rates. All these factors can also lead to job burnout as well as poor customer service.

The only thing worse for a customer than a late delivery is a rude, stressed out delivery driver ??? punctual service with a smile is a much better way to do business. And you don't need a psychology degree to work out how to achieve this 'state-of-calm.'

So what can your business do to manage and reduce these factors?

Many businesses are turning to technology to help them gain more control and in turn, lower stress levels.

Giving employees control includes giving them the power to make job-related decisions, the flexibility to organise their work in the way they find optimal, and the authority to find make improvements to how their job is done.

Making this work requires providing employees with the training, coaching, information and the tools they need to make intelligent decisions.

But when a business does not take action to reduce employee stress, it can impact on the business in a wide variety of areas, such as high staff turnover and recruitment costs, high absenteeism, reduced productivity levels and increased health and safety issues.

Some of the best performing businesses have found that increased control helps to significantly improve driver performance and productivity.

For example, employees with lower stress levels are often better at time management, planning and multi-tasking, resulting in greater efficiency and higher job satisfaction.

In terms of managing stress in the business, stay focused on the things that you can control, such as ensuring drivers are road fit and performing at their best.