
Navigating Workplace Stress: Employee Benefits For Improving Mental Health
Sadly, many employees experience work stress, anxiety and low mood, which hurts both these individuals and their companies. It’s bad enough that poor mental health negatively impacts people’s confidence, motivation and overall wellbeing. But the issue spreads much further, with nearly 10% of UK adults needing to take time off for mental health reasons in 2024, which reduces business performance.
Work-related mental health issues now cost the UK economy £57.4 billion each year, nearly doubling in recent years. It’s clear that too much stress at work is a huge issue for both individuals and their companies. So, it’s time to take action!
Better support your people and help them thrive by introducing the benefits and initiatives that will reduce workplace stress. Keep reading and discover the best benefits to boost your team and how to navigate employee stress.
What is workplace stress?
Job stress refers to the adverse reaction that people experience due to excessive pressure or demand placed on them. In the workplace, stress can be caused by many factors such as high workloads, toxic work culture, conflicts or even bullying.
This pressure can manifest physically and mentally, causing employees to experience:
- Burnout
- Fatigue
- Anxiety
- Back pain
- Digestive issues
- Skin issues
But job stress doesn’t just impact individuals, it can also have a knock-on effect on productivity, workplace morale, culture and much more. That’s why it’s so important for businesses to understand the negative effects of stress in the workplace and proactively manage employee wellbeing.

How to navigate and manage employee stress
There are many reasons why people experience high stress levels at work. Thankfully, there are measures you can take as an employer to help avoid them while also boosting motivation, productivity, and business performance! Take a look at the top recommendations below and see how you can implement them.
Not only do recognition and rewards give people a well-deserved confidence boost, but they also encourage individuals to strive for more knowing that their efforts will be acknowledged. By implementing employee rewards and recognition initiatives like peer-to-peer appreciation and milestone awards, you’ll help your employees connect with each other and get a greater sense of achievement from their work. This will ultimately lead to a healthier relationship with their job and workplace. HR professionals strongly resonate with this sentiment, with 81% emphasising the importance of direct manager feedback and peer recognition in fostering a supportive work culture. It’s a healthy workplace culture, combined with appreciation that will boost your employees’ wellbeing and reduce stress!
Employee RecognitionRecognise employee achievements
Heavy workloads, long work hours and an always-on mindset are key contributors to workplace stress. To avoid employee burnout, you need to support your team’s wellbeing and encourage healthy work habits. Thankfully, there are many ways to do this. Whether it’s introducing flexible working hours, ensuring employees take regular breaks, offering remote work options or giving people the option to buy extra holiday, you can help your team balance their personal and professional lives better. This will lead to lower stress levels, increased productivity and improved wellbeing – a win-win for you and your team!
Healthy work-life balance
Research shows that teams with an open work style are 60% more likely to achieve better results, faster, and 80% more likely to display high emotional wellbeing. Despite this, currently only 51% of employees believe communication is open. Don’t let your team feel the same!
If you encourage your employees to give direct feedback, share their knowledge and communicate updates in a timely manner, you’ll create a supportive, open environment where people can voice their thoughts and be lifted up by one another. Furthermore, you can introduce more company communication channels to ensure messages reach everyone. Not only does this align with the 76% of C-suite executives who affirm the openness of communication channels, but it also aligns with employees’ needs for emotional connection at work.
Open communication
A healthy work environment is paramount when it comes to reducing employee stress. By fostering a culture based on trust, collaboration and meaningful connections, you’ll bring your team together and improve overall wellbeing. To do this, encourage your people to get involved in company activities and embrace positive company values such as respect, trust and empathy. You can even go further in reinforcing these values by rewarding people who display these actions or behaviours. Overall, you’ll see morale go up and stress diminish as people can relax and enjoy being part of an uplifting, caring team!
Positive workplace culture
Most people naturally want to grow and develop within their careers, and they’ll often leave companies which don’t support their aspirations. Furthermore, a quarter of UK workers stated that a lack of career progression is a key factor affecting their job satisfaction. Without job satisfaction, people are likely to be demotivated and less productive in their roles.
So, keep your team interested and inspired by offering opportunities to upskill. By allowing your employees to progress and get rewarded for their career growth, you’ll encourage them to work harder and stay motivated. This will give them a well-deserved confidence boost which benefits them and you!
Growth and progression
Company benefits and rewards are brilliant when it comes to boosting people both at work and at home. For example, rewards and recognition programmes help employees feel valued, as they know their work is appreciated. This can give them a much-needed confidence boost that drives motivation and productivity.
Similarly, wellbeing support like health cash plans and gym discounts help people take care of their health and wellness, which will ultimately also increase productivity. When people feel happy and healthy, they have the energy to go the extra mile.
But it’s important to remember that for benefits to have a real impact, they need to be tailored to your employees. Ensure you and your team benefit from your company perks by hand-picking the desirable ones and targeting your people’s needs and concerns.
Employee BenefitsIntroduce employee benefits
Employee benefits that positively impact workplace stress
Staff benefits are much more than just freebies and stuff. Meaningful work perks have the power to reduce work stress and hugely improve employee satisfaction, wellbeing and productivity by helping people access the things they need to genuinely thrive – both at work and at home!
Of course, not all benefits are created equal. So to help you choose the right ones and give your team a proper boost, we’ve picked a handful of the best benefits to support your team’s wellbeing and reduce work-related stress and anxiety. Take a look!
Over a third (38%) of UK adults are affected by money worries and financial stress which is exactly why employee discounts are so incredibly beneficial. Not only do they help your team make their money go further, easing financial stress, but they also help people do more of the things they enjoy, boosting their emotional wellbeing in the process. These both contribute to overall staff wellness, which increases productivity, motivation and engagement!
The best part is that there’s a huge range of staff discounts available, so you can pick and choose the ones that will truly make a difference. Whether it’s savings on cinema tickets, supermarket shopping, gym memberships or holidays, there’s something for everyone.
Boost DiscountsStaff discounts
A reward and recognition programme can consist of initiatives like peer-to-peer recognition, milestone awards, personalised rewards, and seasonal bonuses which all go a long way to helping people feel seen and appreciated for the things they do. When you recognise and reward your employees’ hard work and celebrate their special moments, you’ll not only motivate them to go above and beyond, but you’ll also reduce stress by making sure each individual sees that their efforts aren’t wasted.
Boost RecognitionRewards and recognition
A healthy workplace culture is critical when it comes to reducing employee stress. This is why one of the best ways to boost your employees and support their wellbeing is to foster a culture of trust and give people autonomy. This can be done by introducing flexible working conditions and empowering your team to take responsibility for their own workloads and work hours. Contrary to belief, giving your people the freedom to choose their schedule will usually improve productivity and motivation as they can work when best suits them and also get a better work-life balance.
Holiday TradingFlexible working conditions
Employee wellbeing initiatives like cycle to work schemes, corporate gym discounts, mental health apps and health cash plans are all hugely beneficial for staff wellbeing. Why? Because when people feel good in themselves and they’re taking care of themselves, their overall wellbeing will increase and stress levels will naturally drop. As we also know, this will also positively affect employee engagement, business performance and much more. So if you’ve not yet set up any wellbeing support or initiatives for your team, now’s the time to!
Boost WellbeingHealth and wellbeing
How Boostworks can help minimise work-related stress
When it comes to minimising high stress levels at work, the best approach is to support your team with a tailored employee benefits package that helps lift them up in as many areas of life as possible. By handpicking the initiatives, tools and resources you give your team access to, you’ll target the source of the stress, and ultimately benefit both your people and your business.
Now we get that it’s often easier said than done, so we’re always on hand to help you navigate employee wellbeing and boost your people with the right benefits. Whether it’s wellbeing support from our fantastic partners, gym discounts, high street offers, rewards or recognition programmes, we’ve got you covered!
Get in touch today and let’s chat about how we can support your people. We’re ready to help them thrive. Are you?
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