Work stress management: a practical guide for HR teams and managers

Work stress management: from day-to-day responses to managing working conditions

Work stress exists to some degree in most workplaces. The challenge begins when pressure becomes a persistent pattern linked to a high workload, repeated time pressure, unsuitable schedules or a lack of support and resources.

For human resources (HR) teams and managers, the aim is not to remove every form of pressure. It is to identify the sources of pressure that can be changed and to manage working conditions in a more sustainable way.

What factors can increase work stress?

The World Health Organization explains that psychosocial risks at work can include excessive workloads or a high work pace, time pressure, understaffing, long or inflexible working hours, shift work, limited control over work, limited support and unclear roles.

Practical examples include:

• A high workload over long periods.
• Short, repeated deadlines.
• Too few employees for the volume of work.
• Long working hours or unstable schedules and shifts.
• Unclear responsibilities and priorities.
• Weak communication or managerial support.
• Difficulty separating work time from life outside work.

When does pressure need management review?

A busy day or one exceptional project is not a basis for judging a workplace.

What deserves review is pressure that lasts for weeks or months, or that keeps recurring in the same team or the same shift. We set out the operational signals worth watching, such as persistent overtime, accumulating leave and frequent shift swaps, in Employee burnout: causes, signs and how companies can detect it early.

This guide focuses on the next step: what does a manager do on seeing that their team is under persistent pressure?

What does a manager do on noticing persistent pressure in their team?

Start with a direct conversation with the team

• Set aside part of one-to-one meetings to ask about workload, priorities and what is holding work up.
• Ask about the work itself, not about how much pressure the employee can take.
• Listen before proposing a solution, and note what comes up repeatedly across the team.

Redistribute tasks within the team

• Identify who carries the largest share of urgent tasks, and who is asked to cover every time.
• Spread out the tasks that are concentrated on one person or one team.
• Postpone or cancel low-priority tasks instead of adding them on top of existing work.

Review the schedule before publishing it

• Make sure there is enough rest time between shifts.
• Do not let emergency cover fall to the same people every time.
• Publish the schedule early so employees can plan their time.

Do not postpone leave indefinitely

• Approve leave requests on time whenever the workflow allows.
• If you have to postpone someone's leave, agree a clear alternative date with them.

Escalate what you cannot solve alone

• If the pressure comes from understaffing or from targets that do not match resources, take it to senior management and HR with the data that supports it.

These steps are not a psychological or medical diagnosis, and they do not replace referring an employee to specialists when they need support. What they do is put working conditions themselves under review.

How do companies manage work stress at policy level?

1. Review workload and resources

Start by comparing the volume of work with the number of employees and the time available. If one team consistently carries more than its operational capacity, the problem may lie in how work or resources are distributed, not in individuals' ability to cope.

2. Make goals and deadlines achievable

Persistent time pressure and repeated short deadlines are factors worth reviewing. Goals should match the size of the team, its resources and the time available.

3. Organise working hours and shifts

Clear, stable schedules help employees and managers plan better. Reviewing overtime and shift swaps also helps detect operational pressure early.

4. Strengthen the manager's role

The World Health Organization recommends training managers to understand work stress and to improve their communication, listening and response skills when employees show signs of pressure or distress.

5. Involve employees in decisions that affect their work

Involving employees in designing schedules, organising workflows and identifying operational problems can help build solutions that are more realistic and easier to apply.

6. Use flexible working arrangements clearly

The International Labour Organization notes that some flexible working arrangements can support work-life balance when they are clearly organised and do not turn into a permanent extension of working hours.

7. Measure the effect of the change

After redistributing work, adjusting schedules or adding staff, look at the data again.

• Has overtime fallen?
• Have shifts become stable?
• Is leave being used more evenly?
• Have recurring operational problems decreased?

How Dawmt handles the operational picture

Dawmt does not diagnose work stress or any psychological condition.

It helps HR teams and management organise work data and review trends more clearly.

Attendance and working hours

Recording attendance through the app or fingerprint-based biometric terminals, and tracking working hours, absence and overtime.

Leave and balances

Managing leave requests, balances and leave plans, which helps show how leave is being used.

Shifts and schedules

Scheduling shifts, including rotating days off and night shifts, with shift swaps in the app.

Reports and analytics

Workforce dashboards and reports, such as headcount and turnover, that help management review trends.

Self-service

Letting employees submit and track a number of requests in the app, such as leave, attendance excuses and shift swaps.

Worked example: a manager preparing for a busy season

Imagine a customer service manager who knows the next six weeks will bring a rise in requests, and whose team has just come out of a long period of overtime.

Before the season:

1. They review the task list with the team and postpone anything not tied to the season.
2. They spread shifts so that the same people do not take every evening slot or every rest-day shift.
3. They agree leave dates before or straight after the season with employees whose leave balances have built up.
4. They agree with management when to ask for temporary support if the workload goes beyond the team's capacity.

During the season:

They hold a short weekly check-in to ask what is getting in the way, and track overtime in the attendance reports so that it does not become the default answer to every increase in workload.

After the season:

They review what actually happened: has overtime returned to its usual level? Was the agreed leave taken? What needs to change before the next season?

This way the manager does not wait for the problem to show up in the data. They manage working conditions ahead of it, then use the data to check the effect of their decisions.

Conclusion

Managing work stress is not the employee's responsibility alone.

Companies can reduce the sources of chronic pressure by reviewing workload, schedules, resources, management practices and communication, and then measuring the effect of any changes they make.

When attendance, leave, shift and working-hours data is clear, it becomes easier for HR teams and managers to spot the patterns that deserve attention and start the conversation at the right time.

Sources

• World Health Organization, Mental Health at Work.
• World Health Organization, Guidelines on Mental Health at Work.
• World Health Organization and International Labour Organization, Mental Health at Work: Policy Brief.
• International Labour Organization, Working Time and Work-Life Balance Around the World.
• Dawmt, official product and feature pages.

Disclaimer

This article is general educational and management content. It is not a medical or psychological diagnosis and does not replace specialist advice where needed.