Whether it’s too much noise or a badly-thought-out office layout, a demanding boss or unsympathetic colleagues, too many things combined can make the average office worker blow their top. Here, then, is a handy guide to reducing the day-to-day stress of an office environment (with one of them being – you guessed it – a really good cup of coffee!)
1) Practise self-care
To create a healthy, stress-free office environment, begin with looking after yourself. If you make taking care of yourself your first priority, everything else in your working environment will fall into place. Taking care of yourself doesn’t mean being selfish: it means taking responsibility for your own health and welfare. This could include making sure you get an adequate amount of sleep each night, or spending time relaxing with your friends and family so that when the time comes to go to work, you’re on your best game.
2) Be aware of what stresses you out
Being aware of what is likely to stress you out in your working environment - and taking sensible steps towards limiting those negative effects - is an extremely important aspect of managing your working life. For example, if you know that in the coming week you’ll struggle to meet a particularly demanding workload, talk to your immediate supervisor about lightening that load a little. Likewise, if you know that seeing people not pulling their weight really gets your goat, speak to your office colleagues and ask them to help you out a bit. Taking sensible proactive steps like these will avoid burnout later on.
3) Focus on creating good relationships
Building good relationships with your work colleagues over time is of the utmost importance. Treating people badly in the office only harms yourself and the organisation you work for, since it contributes to a negative atmosphere in the workplace (and what goes around comes around – you’ll very likely regret mistreating people in the end). Focus on cultivating good relationships; help people out in the office when their workloads are heavy and you’ll find they’ll be willing to do the same in return.
4) Make use of resources available to you
Many modern organisations and working environments offer resources to their employees specifically designed to combat and prevent the office stresses described above. Many employers now provide services such as workplace counsellors who you can speak to about personal problems, or after-work sports events like squash or badminton games where you can blow off some steam. Make the best use of these facilities, as they are there to make you happier and healthier.
5) Make good coffee!
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it’s imperative to have access to good coffee on a daily basis in the modern workplace. This doesn’t just mean the types and brands of coffee available to staff – you should have a fair coffee-making rota in place so that everyone takes it in turns to make coffee for their parched colleagues. Everyone deserves to have a good cup of coffee brought to them when they need it most!
