Dealing with Stress!

Speciality Bites with

Paul Hargreaves

Chief executive of Cotswold Fayre

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Many apologies that is has been quite a while since I last wrote. There is a clue in the title of this blog. I thought I would make myself a human experiment for your sakes, just so I could relay my experiences to you!

It’s been quite a few weeks, firstly I had to lose two senior members of staff on the eve of our biggest project for years i.e. putting in a new IT and warehouse management system. Usual horrendous week of implementation, and we were just starting to get on top of things when we had a flood!

Yes, that’s right – a flood in the hottest spell of the year – massive storm, and water pouring in through our warehouse roof destroying any stock in its way. Two days of clearing up one of the great lakes of Canada within our warehouse. I thought things couldn’t get worse until I had a call at 6:30 the following Monday morning advising that the key internal implementer of the new Warehouse Management System had been rushed into hospital over the weekend, and hasn’t been seen since.

It’s been a horrible time. Fortunately for my team I am generally one of those people who don’t look stressed even when they are, although I confess some has leaked out this week. Many of those within the speciality food sector, reading articles like this, are business owners and probably those tending to having potentially stressful jobs and lives, so that set me thinking about what are the best ways of relieving stress. A few tips, some of which I have put in place currently and others I am still working on!

- Ensure you have a good team and are working on the business, not in it. i.e. the day-to-day stuff happens without you.
- Ensure you get away for weekends and holidays from time to time.  Apart from benefiting the “soul” these breaks will enable you to gain a different perspective on the business and maybe even some new ideas for reducing stress!
- Delegate, delegate, delegate.  Generally staff love more responsibility!
- Ensure that there are people you can call on to come and work in areas of the business when you are stretched.  We have a very flexible workforce in the UK and there are experts everywhere who are happy for seasonal work
- Put in clear systems and structures so “what happens if….” Is clear without you having to be involved

Now off for some light relief – I am moving house this week!