Workplace Stress: Interview with Andy Seale

Stress is one of the biggest issues in the workplace these days and having a healthy work-life balance is a difficult task for some.

At Cigna Global, we want to help you to manage stress and have a better work-life balance.

In this interview, we speak to Andy Seale, Head of Individual and Corporate SME Sales at Cigna Global, to find out how he deals with stress in the workplace.

What kind of things do you do to deal with stress and maintain a good work-life balance?

Working in sales can be a stressful job at times and it involves working long hours and occasionally working on weekends as well. My job also involves quite a lot of travel so whenever I can, I try and take some downtime.

I find spending time with my family to be a really good way of de-stressing. I’m also trying to keep fit, by eating better and working out more, I find these are both really good things and help take my mind off stresses from the day.

I would tell people that if they’re ever feeling low or feeling a bit down, that it really helps to share that problem with someone else whether that be a friend, a family member or someone they work with. I find myself that this is a massive way of helping to ease stress and to creating a really good work-life balance.

How important do you think it is for people to manage their stress and have a good work-life balance?

I think it’s really important to get your work-life balance right. Especially working in International Markets where you work with colleagues from across many different countries and time zones so it sometimes means you end up working late into the evening or very early in the morning depending on what part of the world you are talking to.

It’s therefore very important to take that down time whenever you can and really look after your health and wellbeing.

How important is it that Cigna provides resources for people to deal with their stress?

I think it’s really important for Cigna to provide resources to help people deal with stress. I think a great example of that is the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) that Cigna provides for all staff.

This is a fantastic service if you need to reach out to someone for any kind of support and it’s not just related to stress, in addition to counselling advice, the EAP service also offers financial and legal advice so it’s a really good resource to help you manage the stresses that day to day life can throw at you.

There are lots of different things that Cigna does to help maintain mental health well-being and the Employee Assistance Program is just one of many great examples.

Finally, in terms of managing a team, are there any hints you can offer to create a stress-free atmosphere?

One thing I try and do with the team that I lead is wherever possible try to make sure we smile and make others smile. I’ve found that over the years if you are able to have a laugh a day with the team then you are way more productive and smiling means you’re happy and happy teams are always the most successful teams.

This also really helps to take the stress off everything else and puts things into perspective. Our jobs can be stressful so it’s always good just to have a little bit of downtime when you can with the team and to just remember to enjoy what you do. 

See Stress Differently