Managers close to burnout: impacts of stress

The CIPD’s article ‘Managers close to breaking point fail to support team’ has highlighted some shocking issues for today’s managers with the impacts of stress. Are managers close to burn out, bad managers?

Bupa surveyed 6,000 employees and found that one tenth of managers are ‘close to breaking point’ due to the impacts of stress. Whilst digging deeper, it became apparent to Bupa that in keeping with what many feel are ‘prejudices’ against mental health, 15% of managers feel that showing their employees that the pressure is too much is a sign of weakness and that only 12% would tell their boss they are feeling this way.

Although this type of thinking comes naturally to many, it is important that organisations begin to rectify this and show that stress and depression are not signs of weakness. Managers need somewhere to vent their frustrations and find out how the impacts of stress can be coped with or rectified.

The knock on impacts of stress for managers can spread far within any organisation, as indicated by the report: Many managers said that they felt too stressed to be able to help team members with their own problems. The team members will of course then begin to feel unsupported and before long, the problems with workplace moral will be an issue that is far bigger than it should be and absence will too increase.

On the other side of the coin, managers too should be able to spot stress within their team members. The charity Mind has a useful online section shown here, on how to manage stress in others such as how to cope with others having panic attacks, anxiety, anger and general stress.

If you need help in managing stress and related absence within your workplace, get in touch with us for information on great Stress Management courses for managers run by our partners Corporate Health. Finally, take a look at how our self-managed Software as a Service (SaaS) solution Engage can help you manage the attendance patterns.