CBT techniques for managing stress and burnout for frontline retail staff
The high-pressure environment and customer interactions that front line retail staff face can take a toll on their mental health. 17% of retail workers missed at least one day of work due to mental health concerns last year.
While some factors can reduce stress in the workplace, such as managing workload and setting realistic targets and expectations, stressful situations are often unavoidable, especially for frontline retail staff. So, using techniques from mental health therapy treatments, employees and employers can ensure that they are prepared with the tools needed to better manage their reactions and responses to stressors.
In this article, we will examine the best CBT techniques for helping retail workers improve their emotional resilience and achieve a healthy work-life balance.
We will also discuss how employers can create more positive working environments that prioritise this balance to reduce burnout among frontline retail staff and across the entire team.
What is CBT?
Never Miss a Retail Update!Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is a type of talking therapy that aims to help people manage the impact and symptoms of a variety of mental health problems, anxiety, depression and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
CBT helps us better understand how our thoughts and behaviours impact us and ultimately gives us the tools to change and adapt our behaviour.
For frontline retail workers who are exposed to high-stress scenarios and experience burnout, CBT can be used to build emotional resilience and provide techniques and tools to manage stress in the workplace and their lives outside of work.
Recognising signs of stress or burnout
There are some key signals that someone may be experiencing stress or burnout. Being able to recognise the physical or emotional symptoms of stress and burnout can help employees and employers identify if it’s time they, or someone they work with, seek support.
Retail managers and HR teams can monitor the mental health of their frontline workers and look out for the signs of burnout.
Physical signs of stress and burnout
- Headaches
- Fatigue, often caused by trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
- Change in appetite
- Digestive issues
Behavioural signals of stress and burnout
- Lack of motivation
- Withdrawal
- Irritability
- Avoidance
How can front line retail staff manage their own mental health with CBT techniques
Frontline retail workers can use a combination of techniques both at and outside of work to help build their emotional resilience and be able to better manage stressful situations as they arise in the workplace.
Setting boundaries and seeking support from managers
While additional income from overtime opportunities may seem tempting, working too many hours per week can have a negative impact on overall health.
CBT can help employees set clear boundaries to better protect their mental and physical health and improve work-life balance.
Good employers should respect these boundaries, however, CBT can help staff feel empowered to reinforce boundaries if challenged or overlooked.
CBT can help employees gain the confidence to seek support from managers and have conversations about boundaries and availability clearly and concisely.
By clearly communicating when they are available to work and setting boundaries, frontline employees can create a healthier separation between working and personal time, contributing to an improved work-life balance and decreasing the risk of burnout.
Creating and maintaining healthy habits
One of the best ways to manage work related stress and anxiety is to create a routine that centers on healthy habits.
Eating regularly, choosing fresh and healthy meals, making time to exercise and ensuring to get enough sleep can all contribute to increased positivity and improved overall health.
Adopting healthy habits can help to regulate the body’s stress response. That means that even if stressful situations occur at work, the foundations are in place to help frontline workers be better prepared to manage stress and prevent retail burnout.
Practicing self-care and positive affirmations
To further enhance a healthy lifestyle, adopting additional self-care activities can help manage stressful situations or anxiety inducing incidents at work.
Starting the day with positive affirmations or journaling can help to set the tone for the rest of the day, and set up employees to be more capable when dealing with stress.
Using mindful breathing when experiencing stress can be a quick and easy way to regulate emotions at the moment, helping to process negative thoughts before they start to have a greater impact on behaviours
How businesses can support their frontline retail workers
Although retail staff can take positive steps to improve their mental health, employers have a responsibility to create a safe, positive environment for all their workers. Implementing best practices and policies that prioritise a healthy work-life balance can ensure staff feel supported when encountering stressful situations.
Managing workloads and setting realistic expectations.
Prioritizing a healthy work-life balance starts by setting realistic expectations and making sure the workload is achievable. Managers and senior staff can help their frontline workers to reduce stress and avoid burnout by ensuring that resources and output are aligned.
Putting too much pressure on outputs, setting unattainable targets and expecting too much from frontline retail workers can lead to a negative company culture, increase the chance of retail burnout and impact other areas of business operations, such as making it harder to attract and retain talent.
Providing health care that includes talking therapy
When it comes to creating a competitive benefits package, many employers are providing private healthcare for their employees. However, go one step further and check if a corporate health care plan includes talking therapies, such as CBT.
The minimum number of CBT sessions recommended is 6, although treatment time can vary from 5-15 sessions. So, providing employees with at least 6 sessions of talking therapy like CBT as part of their overall private health care can help employees to seek help when they start to recognise signs of work related stress and anxiety.
Encouraging breaks and creating opportunities for mindfulness moments in the workplace
Another small but impactful way to improve employees’ mental health in the workplace is to schedule regular breaks.
Not only this, employers should ensure that their employees can take these breaks and encourage them to do so. This allows employees to take necessary time away from the retail floor and from customers to rest and recuperate, as well as eat.
There are also opportunities to create moments for mindfulness in communal areas to help employees best use their breaks to manage stress.
This could be having positive affirmation artwork, providing mindfulness colouring sheets and supplies in staff rooms, or signposting staff to mental health first aiders in the organisation.
Investing in mental health training and recruiting mental health first aiders
One of the best ways that businesses can prioritise the mental health of all their employees is to invest in mental health training, just like retail giants, M&S, who have pioneered mental health training for their employees.
Recruiting engaged employees who wish to become mental health first aiders can benefit their personal and professional development, as well as create opportunities and resources for other employees needing or seeking support.
In destigmatising mental health and making space for open conversations about anxiety, stress and burnout, we can improve the company culture and have a positive impact on the mental health of all employees, from frontline retail staff to the CEO.
Final Thoughts
Together, employees and employers can work to create a toolkit of CBT techniques that can be used both in and outside of the workplace to help them manage work related stress and avoid burnout.
From setting boundaries and encouraging breaks, to maintaining healthy habits and investing in mental health training, there are many techniques of CBT for anxiety and stress.
These can be adopted by both frontline retail workers and their managers to build the skills required to better cope with stress and improve their mental and emotional resilience.
