Have you ever felt stressed when working in a team? Maybe the different personalities of the members clashed. If so, you know firsthand how such stress can affect your wellbeing and your performance. Read on to find out how to resolve such stress and why doing so is so important.
It’s easy to get stressed when dealing with incompatible team members, especially if you have to work with them day after day. This is true whether the different personalities cause major problems as the team members are working together, or whether the members just rub each other the wrong way
We used to be quite cavalier about stress in the workplace. It was taken for granted that a certain amount of job stress was normal. Now we know better.
Ongoing stress can cause serious health problems, both emotional and physical. Emotional health problems, including anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders, and even burnout can all affect the employees’ quality of life as well as their productivity.
In addition, continuous stress can cause or worsen physical health issues, including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma, headaches, a range of gastrointestinal problems and more. Studies have shown that it can also make people age faster, and even kill them.
Today’s companies have become very aware of how important their employees’ mental and physical health is to their wellbeing as well as their teams’ success. They also know that employee wellbeing is crucial to the company’s bottom line. In fact, having an employee off on long-term sick leave can be extremely costly!
To help improve the situation, various wellness programs and initiatives have popped up in companies around the country. That’s a good thing. However, there is another, more effective way to improve the situation.
Since a lot of stress comes from incompatible team members trying to work together, it makes sense to go to the source of the problem: the teams and how they’re put together.
Team members are often selected based on their areas of expertise. Sometimes, they’re even selected simply based on who’s available. However, it is just as important to make sure that their personalities work well together. While personality testing has been used for years, the results were often hit or miss.
Now, a new tool has become available that has made it much easier and faster to assemble teams and predict their compatibility. HR managers and company executives can use a Team Compatibility Programme to quickly assess a new person’s compatibility with an existing team. And they can also assemble entirely new teams from scratch.
But what if there is conflict within an existing team?
The Team Compatibility Programme can help in such situations as well. By analysing the personalities involved in the conflict, the programme can help the affected members understand the source of the conflict, allowing them to work more effectively with their coworkers. Instead of stress, the improved relationships lead to happier, healthier employees and better results.
While there is a place for stress management training and tools, going to the source of the stress, especially when it comes to teams, is ultimately much more effective. As stressful situations are resolved, productivity and employee satisfaction increases, and both team members and the company will benefit greatly.
To find out more about the Team Compatibility Programme referred to above, please visit https://teamculture.uk for more information and a free demo.