I wrote my book about stress because I felt like, from my experiences, others could benefit from what I have gone through.  When it comes to today’s pandemic and the stress it causes in the workplace, I wanted to share a few of my thoughts you may find helpful, especially in a laboratory environment in which remote work may not be possible.

Sign on cork board saying stress free zone

One of the key lessons I learned that I’d like to share is about the delayed effects of stress.  I personally found my body got me through some very stressful times in my life.  But I continued to push and never gave my body a chance to recover.  Finally, my body said “Enough is enough” and I suffered a multitude of physical symptoms from shortness of breath, chest pains, food allergies, cholesterol, and thyroid issues along with others, either partially or wholly brought on by stress.

Our bodies will help take care of us in these stressful times.  And we also need to take care of our bodies.  I’d suggest we acknowledge the stress and what we can do to mitigate it and take care of ourselves as well as others.

I’d like to focus on one key component of the workplace that can not only help us today but can help catapult us individually and collectively into the future.  It’s communication.  Communication and understanding are key components in dealing with stress.

This is a great time to expand our organizational teamwork as we can frequently be so busy with our daily tasks, we don’t take time to network and build internal relationships.

Everyone’s experience, and stress level, with this pandemic can be different.  We can have different levels of concern about contracting Covid-19 and obviously our risk levels vary based on our age and health.  This is a great time to have open honest conversations with your team.  Discuss what they’re going through.  Discuss how you can achieve your objectives while, at the same time, taking care of yourselves and each other.  I’d suggest, so your conversations are productive, you establish the following prior to these talks:

  • Develop a common desired outcome.  What can we all agree to we want to achieve in these conversations?  What would make these successful talks to where we all feel heard and our needs can be addressed to as great a level possible.
  • Have a clear agenda and talking points.  Give everyone who wants a chance to talk to contribute.
  • With that in mind, keep these conversations organized and on time.  Have start and end times.  Ask participants to plan their thoughts so they can express them in a specific time period (i.e. each person gets 5 minutes).
  • Have the following established roles.  Someone should facilitate to keep things on track.  Someone should be the timekeeper.  Someone should take notes.
  •  Recap and confirm what the next steps are.

I’d suggest as a key ground rule that is this is a great time to collaborate as an organization.  Work together to create mutually beneficial outcomes.  Frequently internally we can have unproductive competition when we focus only on our own needs or the needs of just our direct team instead of the organization as a whole and our customers as well.

I see potentially great benefits coming from these collaborative conversations.  Greater understanding and empathy of their team will occur.    They will have a chance to get to know each other in a new way which will help them work together with greater collaboration and teamwork going forward. 

And we won’t feel like we’re out on an island, strictly advocating for our own cause.  We advocate as a team for our team while taking care of ourselves, our company and our customers.

When I wrote my book about stress it was for the purpose of helping others, not for profit.  If you would like a complimentary E-version or Kindle version, please reach out to Charmine Bunker, who is my right hand, she will take care of you.  If you prefer a hard copy, they are on Amazon but no need to purchase if you are good with one of the other two versions.

You are welcome to E-versions of my other books as well. You can find them at www.michaeljlevin.com.  Just let Charmine know when you reach out to her.  Be safe and well.

Michael Levin is an entrepreneur, best selling author, management coach, motivational speaker and president of Custom Solutions.  Subjects of his recent blogs include keys to working at home, mentorship, extending the lines outside the box, working with multi-generations in the workforce and developing leaders.