Flexible, Hybrid and Remote Working, Wellbeing

Podcast Episode 50: Managing Stress into Productivity

6th April 2020

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4 min read

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How appropriate for the world that April is National Stress Awareness Month… So, how do we deal with stress, especially given the current situation? Is it even possible to turn stress into something positive? By managing stress into productivity, we can come back stronger once we recover.

Resource: Prioritising Self-care Worksheet

This Episode: Managing Stress into Productivity

HR professionals are suddenly finding themselves very much on the frontlines when it comes to distributing the hard decisions being taken by management. It’s certainly a situation that’s bound to result in unprecedented levels of stress and disturbance. So what can we do in these difficult circumstances to manage the current situation?

This episode sees Lucinda breaking down the causes of stress into three recognisable categories, as well as providing you with practical ways to get through each. Therefore, by managing this stress into productivity, we can all come out stronger on the other side.

Valuable Resources

Particularly relevant previous podcast episode: How to prioritise self-care
Actus Software resource particularly relevant to this podcast:
- How to Prioritise Self-Care Worksheet
Further Reading:
- Open Access News Article: How to minimise stress amongst your workforce
- Metro Article: Why we go stir-crazy in self-isolation and how to combat the feeling
- Real Business Article: A business psychologist’s advice to HR managers during COVID-19
- Stephen Covey’s Self-Care Checklist
- About National Stress Awareness.
Host of The HR Uprising Podcast, Lucinda Carney, is also the founder and CEO of Actus Software, where you can find additional free HR Resources: https://actus.co.uk/free-performance-management-resources/
Join the HR Uprising LinkedIn Group.

Key Takeaways

The main causes of stress are numerous, but can almost always be categorised into three divisions, including:
- A lack of control
- A general sense of anxiety
- A clash of values
Challenge yourself to look at the situation in a different way. Reframing is the art of realising that problems are opportunities for growth. Therefore, giving us the opportunity to come back stronger once we recover.
Unfortunately, there will always be a natural clash between logical and empathy-based decision making. However, as HR professionals, it is our duty to prioritise decisions based upon logic. We can still display empathy and control by the way we enact these decisions.
Moreover, focus on the things we can control, not the things we can’t. This is an ideal time to empower ourselves to take control of our personal daily routines, so craft your time carefully and more productively.
Certainly, now is the time to devote your skills to positive, constructive change that can add effective long-lasting benefits. Therefore, challenge yourself to add value to your business, which will see it emerge stronger on the other side.
The current situation is forcing managers to be less transactional and more human. Above all, it’s an opportunity to understand our people, engender trust, to act in an empathic way, and to provide clarity on expectations.

Best Moments

‘We need to think about recovering, recharging, and coming back stronger!’
‘Any problem can be reframed as an opportunity for growth’
‘Many of the changes forced upon us have a silver lining’
’We work together. We collaborate together. We rise up together’
’Think bigger! Think strategic!’

About The Host

Lucinda Carney is a Business Psychologist with 15 years in Senior Corporate L&D roles and a further 10 as CEO of Actus Software where she worked closely with HR colleagues helping them to solve the same challenges across a huge range of industries. Certainly, it was this breadth of experience that inspired Lucinda to set up the HR Uprising community to facilitate greater collaboration across HR professionals in different sectors, helping them to ‘rise up’ together.

“When we look up we rise up”