Transcript
I think workplace safety's certainly been improving over the years. I mean if you look at what the practices used to be 20 years ago. But the one thing that's gone absolutely crazy in all of our surveys and all of the emails we get here is that stress is a major issue. It's gone ballistic, some people have said.
So I'd like to... I love open plan, because it allows me to walk around and I can see the change in people's faces. So if you're lucky enough to have that sort of environment, a manger can be looking for the people who are stressed.
Some people take on projects, some people say, at work, "Yes, I can do it, yes I can do it". They just take on so much that it weighs them down. And the irony is they're working long hours, they've got too much to do, then they're not managing their time effectively.
So I think when you feel like you're stressed, you've actually got to stop. You've got to do the opposite of what the stress is trying to tell you to do. You've got to stop, draw a line in the sand, sit down and analyse what you've got to do.
The first thing you do is to write down a list of what the priorities are, because the irony about urgent things are, what was urgent today ceases to be urgent tomorrow and certainly the day after, no one is even thinking about it.
So you've got to re-organise things often. Stress is usually a part of poor organization and certainly poor time management and probably a bit of a behavioral issue where you, as an employee, are taking on more than you should, and you're not sharing the load.
So sit down, think about why you're in this situation, write out a bit of a situational analysis, i.e. a to do list about what I've got to do, and then certainly start to talk to people about 'I'm going to be able to deliver on these three things, I'm going to fail on these, and I'm certainly going to get nowhere near these.' And you've got to talk to your supervisor, your manager or your peers about getting some help on the areas that you're not delivering.
So, in short, just be well-organised and recognise it. That's a really big thing because we get into the vicious circle where we don't recognise and we just go ... down. So, when you're looking haggard in the mirror, draw a line in the sand.
