How To Support A Stressed Out Workforce

Posted on 9/11/2025, 11:20:10 AM

Work-related stress is a widespread epidemic right now. An increasing number of workplaces are becoming high-pressure environments as a result of tight budgets and greater demands on a smaller workforce. This is harmful to both employees and employers - according to the American Institute of Stress, work-related stress costs businesses billions annually as a result of absenteeism and turnover. As a business owner, you cannot always prevent your workers from being stressed. However, you can take measures to support your workers in order to reduce problems caused by stress like depression, anxiety and burnout. Here are some of the different ways to support a stressed out workforce. 

Promote a healthy work-life balance

A culture in which workers are encouraged to work overtime or even come in on days off is deeply unhealthy. Find ways to encourage a healthy-work life balance. Consider letting office-based employees work remotely to cut out commuting and promote paid time off. Lead by example by leaving the office at 5 and even consider introducing half days. If people are working overtime or weekends to finish projects, do not praise this behaviour and instead try to work with them to determine how you can reduce their workload. 

Conduct stress audits

Sometimes employees will be visibly stressed, however others will hide their stress and let it build up. Conducting regular stress audits with your employees can be a way of determining how your staff are coping. Encourage open communication in one-on-one meetings and put the emphasis on trying to help employees. If you feel your staff aren’t being open with you, consider a way of giving anonymous feedback and suggestions for improvements to reduce stress. 

Give praise and healthy criticism

How you talk to your employees can be important for motivating them and mitigating stress. If you never praise your employees for doing well, they will lose motivation and will get more resentful when they are burdened with a heavy workload. Of course, if employees are not doing well, you need to be able to criticise them, however you also need to approach criticism in the right way - be constructive rather than focusing on what they are doing wrong, and take note when they do make improvements. 

Provide accessible mental health resources

Most of us are not qualified to give out mental health advice. This can make it hard to properly support employees going through hard times. The best solution is to consider hiring or outsourcing mental health support. This could include partnering with Employee Assistance Programs in which you can connect employees to counsellors for free sessions whenever they need them. You can also consider chaplain services for a more spiritual alternative, which some employees may find more valuable. 

Deal with toxic employees

Sometimes a bad egg can ruin the bunch. Make sure that there are no bullies in your workforce or lazy/incompetent employees who are causing more work for everyone else. Identify these workers, talk to them and provide them with the opportunity to change. If an employee is consistently causing stress for the rest of your workforce, you may have to consider eventually dismissing them. There may also be other ways of reducing conflict such as moving team members to different departments or making certain employees work remotely.