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The Pressure Performance Curve – Learning Zones

In recent weeks, we have shared a number of models, campaigns, blogs and articles around the topic of wellbeing. Keeping an eye on your own mental health/wellbeing and that of others around you has always been vital. But with the additional pressures the sector is facing, it’s easy to drop this to the bottom of the list.

The wellbeing of your workforce is a priority especially when their job is to look after some of the most vulnerable people in our society. This is why we wanted to share with you this week, ‘The Pressure Performance Curve’. This model allows you to assess the level of performance v’s the level of pressure or stress you might be facing to help you to recognise if there are any changes you need to make in order to improve wellbeing within your team. It is broken down into the following 5 zones:

Low pressure zone
Leads to boredom which can cause stress. Often if you are working in this zone, you have low pressure and also low performance.

Comfort zone
As the name suggests, this is the area where most people spend their lives. This is classed as 1 out of the 2 ideal working zones, this zone has low to moderate pressure with medium to high performance.

Stretch zone
You know you are under pressure, face the challenge, grow, develop and increase with confidence and self-esteem. This zone is also known as the learning zone. This is the 2nd of the 2 ideal working zones, where you have moderate to high pressure with high performance.

Strain zone
In this zone, you can become over stretched and working for long periods exhausts your ability to cope. But strain can be managed. It can be good to work within the strain zone sometimes, but it is important not to stay here. If you are working in this zone, you have high pressure and moderate performance.

Panic zone
You are unable to take any more, and you run the risk of serious illness. The person’s distressed state when working in this zone is often obvious to others. The panic zone is also known as the zone of delusion, where you have very high pressure causing very low performance.

Use this model to asses which zone you think you sit in, and then share with your team and ask them the same question. It is a really good tool to use to help you recognise stress/pressure within yourself and your colleagues enabling you to make any changes required to increase your performance as a whole.

We really hope this is something you find useful and is something you can share with your teams and colleagues.

If you would like any more information on the above or have any questions, please either reach out to myself or contact your lead consultant. To get in touch, please email [email protected] or call us on 03305 552233!

As a specialist, family run recruitment business, we provide a proactive and consultative approach to recruitment. We help organisations to target issues such as continuity of staffing, reducing spend where you have a high volume of agency usage and supporting those who have specific talent requirements or are in hard to fill locations. We can help with any immediate staffing requirements or longer-term recruitment projects to ultimately save you time and money on agency spend.

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