Minimizing Stress

Minimizing Stress in Your Working Environment

The way in which your working environment is arranged can be a major source of stress.

An obvious case is where the people and resources you need are not immediately at hand. Here, physical barriers and distance stand in the way of being able to work efficiently. This obviously obstructs people's achievement of work goals and causes stress accordingly.

A less obvious source of stress comes with the difference between working in an open plan environment and working in individual offices. On one hand, it is much easier to work as a team in an open plan environment because walls and barriers get in the way of good team performance. On the other hand, open plan offices can be immensely distracting when you are doing a job that needs intense concentration. The noise of telephones and of people talking can significantly undermine performance in these jobs.

Open plan offices also lack privacy. This is important because it forces people constantly to “maintain appearances”, and to be constantly sociable when they may be more efficient focusing on the job in hand. This requirement for constant sociability can be a source of stress, as people really need to be able to control the level of social activity they participate in, and the way in which they interact.

Being pragmatic, the layout of your working environment may or may not be something you can control. If it is, try to arrange things so that people have easy access to the people and resources they need. This normally works best by organizing workspaces around the processes people operate, or the types of work that they do. The idea here is to make it as easy as possible for people to do their jobs.

If the layout of your workspace is not in your control, then consider making a well-thought-out suggestion to the person responsible as to how things could be improved. Emphasize the benefits of making the change.

If you need personal space but none is available, try blocking off areas with furniture, screens or blinds. If noise is an issue, then padded screens and plants can help to muffle it. Make sure that you explain to your co-workers why you are doing this; after all you don’t want them to think that you are avoiding their company!