{"id":85469,"date":"2024-04-15T13:59:33","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T18:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/?p=85469"},"modified":"2024-12-28T04:38:26","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T04:38:26","slug":"the-surprising-way-you-can-lower-employee-stress","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/the-surprising-way-you-can-lower-employee-stress\/","title":{"rendered":"The Surprising Way You Can Lower Employee Stress"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk says their employees have incredibly low-stress levels. Let’s dive into those numbers — and how you can reduce stress in your business.<\/h3>\n
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Can\u00a0stressed employees<\/a>\u00a0do a good job at work?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Novo Nordisk, the company that makes\u00a0Ozempic<\/a>\u00a0and Wegovy, certainly doesn’t seem to think so.\u00a0According to CEO Lars Fruergaard J\u00f8rgensen, a stressed employee is an\u00a0ineffective employee<\/a>. According to\u00a0QZ<\/a>, he said at a recent company meeting that\u00a0“I don’t think you could run a company if more than 10% of your employees are suffering from stress.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Novo Nordisk’s internal numbers show that 13.8 percent of employees are\u00a0suffering from stress. Frankly, this is an already low number. What exactly is Novo Nordisk doing? Have they landed on the secret for reducing employee stress?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Who is stressed at work?<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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The American Institute of Stress<\/strong><\/a> reports that\u00a080 percent\u00a0of Americans feel stress on the job<\/a>, and 42 percent\u00a0feel like their co-workers need help with their stress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While the American Institute of Stress has good reasons to find stress everywhere (if no one was stressed, they would cease to exist) and Novo Nordisk has good reasons to downplay stress (all our employees are happy!), the truth about employee stress at the Ozempic maker probably lies somewhere in the middle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Novo Nordisk’s\u00a0annual report\u00a0<\/a>describes symptoms of stress rather than generalized stress. They define stress as “a situation where the employee feels tense, restless, nervous or troubled, or unable to sleep at night due to thoughts about their problems.” That’s a different question than “Do you feel stressed?”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It’s difficult to compare apples to apples when different organizations use different definitions. Because Novo Nordisk’s definition focuses on symptoms rather than feelings, they get a lower number.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Clearly, it’s not some magical Novo Nordisk drug that reduces stress–or even some sort of\u00a0Scandinavian magic. Novo Nordisk is headquartered in Denmark, but\u00a0even employees in that region are stressed. The\u00a0Gallup State of the Global Workforce report for 2023\u00a0<\/a>shows that 39 percent of European employees experienced stress during\u00a0the previous day. While Gallup didn’t break the data\u00a0out by country, it’s unlikely that\u00a0Novo Nordisk employees are spectacularly less stressed than others in their regions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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What fixes stress at work?<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Even if there is no secret sauce,\u00a0<\/strong>you can do things to make life less stressful for your employees, such as\u00a0providing\u00a0nap pods and foosball tables. But Gallup found another, more surprising way\u00a0to reduce stress: engaging\u00a0your employees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fifty-six percent\u00a0of employees who are disengaged at work feel\u00a0a lot of stress, Gallup found,\u00a0<\/strong>compared to 30 percent\u00a0of engaged employees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That’s a huge difference.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even more interesting? Engagement is a bigger stress reducer than remote work. That’s right–engaged on-site workers are less stressed than disengaged remote workers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How do you improve employee engagement at work? A\u00a0Harvard Business Review<\/em>\u00a0article\u00a0outlines\u00a0a helpful checklist<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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