“The topic of return-to-work stress is little explored in terms of established practices, but it is strongly felt in companies. That is why, as Aidp, we have started working on creating standards to address it.” Matilde Marandola, president of the Italian Association for Personnel Management, a people management network that includes 4,500 companies, outlines a landscape in which few organizations specifically focus on returning to work, even within an evolving scenario: “In the most enlightened companies, those most attentive to the person, there is a perception that the issue can be a great problem or a great opportunity, because it is an example of a situation where stress is generated, which in turn can affect performance and employee engagement.”
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Smart working and training meetings
On the defendant’s bench, on one side there is the expectation and pressure created in a workplace after a holiday period, on the other a possible lack of flexibility within organizations. “One of the mechanisms that could definitely help is the co-creation of flexibility procedures inspired by maximum personalization, also through listening mechanisms or surveys,” says Marandola. Specifically, according to the Aidp president, measures could include tools such as freer and more flexible use of smartworking for an initial period or the use of a short week immediately after the end of the holidays. And above all, the use of the lever of training meetings for stress management.
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<p“Abroad, especially in the banking and insurance sectors, large groups have designed and implemented solutions to manage the problem of returning to work, but the issue is very hot especially in Italy, because in our country there is a huge concentration of holidays in the two central weeks of August and this fuels the problem, because the number of people under pressure simultaneously is very high, which risks making the problem explosive.”Personalization against stress
Listening, co-creation, and personalization then become indispensable tools, in Aidp’s view, to address the issue, also based on what has already been done, for example, to cope with post-maternity or post-illness return stress, “for which we already have active memoranda of understanding with specialized associations,” says Marandola. She concludes: “Companies must increasingly equip themselves to be welcoming places.”
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