By iCIMS Blogger Karen Bucks

Can you believe it is almost July? As many of you get ready to kick-off your Fourth of July weekend celebration, I’m sure HR will be far from your mind. But as with most jobs, the workload will only increase with every day off. How do you handle work that piles up?

In the HR industry, we most often hear about the importance of creating a stress-free work environment to facilitate employee satisfaction. And while of course that is very important, industry leaders may be forgetting about the stress of a few very important people: the HR professionals. Of course, some could say that an HR professional is an employee and is therefore benefiting from the stress-management initiatives that HR is setting in motion. But unfortunately, HR professionals are often overwhelmed with stress when implementing and managing those employee satisfaction programs.

HR stress is too often underestimated or just plain-old forgotten about. So, while you are helping employees reduce their stress, who is helping you?

I came across an interesting article by Mark Gorkin that touches upon the stress HR professionals often have and five strategies on how to survive those situations. Developing a strategy to handle these strenuous situations is essential to reducing burnout (as Gorkin mentions) as well as increasing HR satisfaction and growth development. When stress is reduced, workers are happier – no question. HR employees who are happier tend to strive for greater goals which not only helps them in their own career growth but also their performance with their employer. What many corporate executives fail to see is that a stressed and burnt-out HR team can directly affect the performance of the company as a whole. A stressed to-the-max HR group can impact quality of hire, hinder training programs, and ultimately hurt employee satisfaction. I'd start “petitioning” your executive team to provide your HR team with the necessary funds and programs to support a stress-free department.

How are companies combating these high-stress HR environments? Some companies are leveraging HR solutions to handle the administrative tasks that can bog down productivity time. Others  are sending their HR professionals to training programs to learn how to optimize their current programs. And other companies are attending conferences and expos, like SHRM 2011 (you there?) to learn about the latest trends and what other people in the industry are doing.

What do you do to reduce your HR stress? How does your company help? If nothing else, one way you can reduce your stress is to relax and treat yourself to a yummy Fourth of July meal this weekend!