It definitely can be, however it’s important to take note that it’s not always smooth sailing.
Premierline, Allianz surveyed 259 small business owners, finding that over a third worry about aspects of their business on a daily or weekly basis and 41% are more stressed now that they run their own company.
What’s keeping business owners up at night?
“There are a broad variety of reasons as to why business owners might feel stress, this could be anything from having excessive or conflicting demands, not enough time, not being supported or it could be the levels of control that you have over aspects of your trade or business.” says Neil Shah, Founder and Director of The Stress Management Society.
Cash flow, marketing and business operations are just a handful of worries that are affecting small business owners.
We’ve certainly experienced this first hand last year. 2015 was a year of great growth for us; however growth also brought about a lot of change within our organisation. This in turn caused Neil to experience stress for a number of reasons – an increase in workload, conflicting demands and also having to spend a lot of time on the people and the actual functioning of the business, instead of business growth and development.
Luckily, because of the work that we do, we identified it very quickly and took positive action.
What did we do?
We practiced what we preach!
We wanted to find out exactly what areas were causing stress for all employees, including Neil, so we conducted a Business Stress Risk Review. Taking action is an important part of the process and can minimise the risk of long-term stress related illness, high staff turnover and other serious consequences of stress.
After analysing and reviewing the results, we found that the results were all above the benchmark data with only a few minor issues raised in the qualitative data section. Regardless, prevention is better than cure, so we put together an action plan inclusive of:
- Focus groups
- Pro-active workshops
- Positive cultural change
Have a wonderful day!
Sabina Darie
Head of Marketing and PR
The Stress Management Society
