Road rage, air rage, appliance rage…’rage’ is all the rage. How about adding a new one to your vocabulary: ‘desk rage.’ Desk rage is a real issue with serious implications for today’s employees and managers and can take the form of rudeness, yelling, verbal abuse or manifest itself through attacks on office equipment and even altercations with other employees.
Countless research has shown that workers are more stressed than ever with many unable to effectively manage their stress. Desk rage is a form of extreme stress that stems from these “normal” stressors and when people do not have a productive outlet for their stress. Desk rage usually comes out when stress levels reach an “I just can’t take it anymore” high.
Before your employees implode, HR may turn to the following tips to help them combat desk rage.
- Lead by example – behaviour naturally cascades down the corporate hierarchy and if your senior leadership team are prone to explicit outburst, then there is a need to cool some tempers. Composed, respectful leaders show everyone by example what professional behaviour looks like, which motivates people to improve themselves and at the same time, discourages bad behaviour.
- Provide training – staff at all levels may not know how to respond to confrontational situations and training should be orientated towards responding to outbursts in a calm manner and for leadership, how to deescalate volatile situations.
- Destress programmes - Well-being initiatives such as massages, meditation, yoga or tai chi are good ways to provide employees with resources and tools to effectively manage their stress levels. Management can use these programmes as another opportunity to lead by example and encourage their teams to access these resources as much as needed.
- Encourage flexibility – Sometimes, the stress may be a result of heavy workloads or a lack of work-life balance. Leaders may want to encourage flexible ways of working or reassess workloads to ease the burden felt by employees - their own included.
- EAPs and Counselling – Sometimes, an employee’s stress levels may be beyond HR’s or corporate’s ability and the employee may need professional help. Assistant programmes can help employees to cope with high stress levels with some companies evening offering onsite anger management counselling services.
- Have fun – At the end of the day, a light, fun environment can boost morale and reduce stress. Integrating fun activities throughout the day or week can enable employees to feel less stressed and enjoy working in a company when others themselves are having a good time.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
