Managing stress is crucial for any workplace. According to Vivian Health, over 52% of employees take stress-related absences. Stress also leads over half of the workforce to apply for or consider moving to new jobs. Your sales team is likely to feel the strain—especially since sales is listed in the top ten of Vivian Health’s rankings of the most stressful industries.
It’s thus vital for the sales team manager to prioritize employee well-being in the workplace. Establishing workflows that allow for a healthy work-life balance and creating two-way avenues of communication to gather employee feedback and alleviate heavy task loads are great ways to start. However, you shouldn’t overlook the benefits of recognizing the mind-body connection—especially as the industry continues to go digital.
Most notably, though modern technology is especially beneficial for streamlining various workflows, using it in sales can strain the eyes. Whether your team is drafting pitches, meeting and negotiating with clients, processing orders, or upskilling, they’re likely using digital devices that are now linked to workplace eye health issues—the kind that can worsen their job satisfaction, productivity, and overall well-being.
As such, providing eye care resources can be one of the most effective things sales managers can do to reduce team stress in the modern workplace. Here’s more on how they can help:
Insurance
Your benefits package may already include health insurance. However, that often doesn’t cover things like vision care. That comprises a key source of stress for many American employees, including those who work in sales. With over 69% of them working longer hours, they log an average of four full days of screen time every week. As a result, over 43% of them report worsened eye health. Given the high costs of vision services, a third of Americans forego getting any issues checked because they don’t have the proper insurance. That can lead to any eye conditions they have progressing even further, exacerbating their stress in the workplace.
By providing your team with the necessary vision insurance, you can relieve that stress by giving them peace of mind. Many providers offer discounted or free annual eye exams and can reimburse prescription eyewear purchases. That means your team can benefit from reduced out-of-pocket costs when they need to get their eyesight assessed and potentially corrected with the necessary aids. MetLife, for example, offers eye exams for as little as $45 compared to the $100 people usually have to spend without insurance. Glasses.com also accepts plans from this provider, which will allow your team to buy quality glasses online even from designer brands like Ray-Ban and Michael Kors—which would otherwise cost around $300 without coverage.
Ergonomics
Even the environment your sales team works in can induce stress, especially when it comes to eye health. Insufficient lighting, as well as poor posture promoted by chair, desk, and monitor placement, can particularly cause their eyes to work harder just to see what’s on their computer screens. It can also lead to non-ocular physical issues that can further worsen their well-being. That includes headaches, neck and back pain, and carpal tunnel syndrome, all of which are considered symptoms of digital eye strain or computer vision syndrome. Redesigning the workplace to reduce eye strain can help you create an environment where your team can operate more comfortably. As such, ergonomic fixtures will act as crucial vision care resources.
Properly lighting your workplace with warm white light bulbs, for example, will help match the brightness of a screen with its surroundings for additional visual comfort. Meanwhile, providing ergonomic furniture and accessories from trusted brands like Herman Miller—such as chairs, monitor or laptop stands, keyboards, and mice—will help promote natural body positions and device placements that don’t require the eyes to view screens from awkward angles.
Education
Finally, you can coach your sales team in maintaining healthy vision in the workplace, and the best way you can do this is by simply providing them with educational resources. For example, you can hold a quick seminar covering eye care practices, like eating foods with vision-friendly nutrients, exercising to lower ocular pressure, quitting smoking to reduce their likelihood of developing conditions like cataracts, and following the 20-20-20 rule to prevent eye strain. To this end, the volunteer organization Prevent Blindness offers plenty of free online resources you can share with your team, including checklists and guides on the best tricks and tools to use to prevent eye strain and workplace eye injuries.
More importantly, perhaps, you’ll want to let your team know more about the vision care resources you’re providing them. After all, even if you offer vision insurance and an eye-friendly work environment, they may not know how they can best take advantage of them. As such, you may want to organize a meeting where you can walk your sales team through these resources and how they can avail of them. For example, if one of your employees wants to reimburse their eyewear purchases, you can further explain the documents or processes they need to submit or undergo to adequately prove they’re eligible to avail of their insurance coverage. Providing these resources and taking these steps can help significantly reduce the stress they may be experiencing if they feel their eye health is worsening due to the nature of their job.
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