1It a sure fact that stress can run havoc, not only to your productivity, but to your health. Studies have proven that the basic cause of 60% of all human illnesses. In fact, 3 out of 4 doctor’s visits are for stress-related ailments.

In the case of productivity, stress is the leading cause of fatigue and exhaustion, both physical and mental. It results to premature burnouts especially among the strivers and workaholics.

People with high levels of stress in their lives ruin their relationships and even shorten their life expectancy. Stress weakens the immune system making them more susceptible to illnesses, not to mention the stripping away their leisure activities and precious time with their family, causing them to miss days of work too.

The most obvious reasons why these people are most susceptible to stress is they do not know or cannot delegate tasks and responsibilities. They lack trust on others’ abilities and capabilities to do tasks. They are too selfish to share their skill or knowledge. They, especially the workaholics, have developed an obsession to their jobs. This one may actually signal some psychological problems.

Perhaps, most of these reasons for stress involved the mind and can be resolved by shift of mindset, and in case of workaholics, medical attention. However, the more common cause of stress that affects productivity is lack of time or the unavailability of extra hand to do tasks.

In many organizations, managers are overworked, stressed out, and frustrated by competing demands and pressure from his work. Unfortunately an overworked manager often passes the tension and stress he feels to his staff and subordinates and so the vicious cycle permeates the entire system.

Many of the functions that burden and stress managers can be avoided if only they can be delegated to others. The most logical solution to this problem is to hire more people. However, most companies have some reservations in hiring extra people because of the expenses and time the process requires. There is also the risk of hiring people not qualified to handle tasks effectively. Terminating them may involve labor problems but training them, on the other hand, means additional money and time wasted. Fortunately, this can now be easily solved by the ever-increasing popularity of a new business practice — outsourcing. What is it and why is it the preferred way run a business?

1Outsourcing is the practices whereby certain tasks are contracted with another company instead of having an in-house employee handle them. Functions that can be outsourced to either a company or an individual include administrative tasks, human resources, customer services, sales, telecommunications, transcription, data entry, etc.

Hiring the services of a legitimate outsourcing company like Mr. Outsource is next logical, and more viable, solution to the problem. Besides cost-reduction, stress-reduction is among the business problems outsourcing meets effectively. Reducing the level of stress in the workplace benefits not only the people but the productivity of the entire company as well.

By outsourcing for additional hands through a competent contracting company, the tedious and expensive job of recruiting and hiring of in-house staff is eliminated. Outsourcing companies take all the precautionary steps to screen thoroughly and ensure that only the right people are hired for the job being outsourced. They do this service in quicker time and less cost for you. Many of these outsourcing companies also offer immediate replacements for those they deploy in case their performance is below par.

The bottom line: The secret to reduce stress effectively and reclaim the control of health is by outsourcing to a virtual assistant the tasks that cause stress.