Tips on Stress Management in the Credit Department

© 2011.  Michael C. Dennis. All Rights Reserved

1. Keep better notes.  Trying to remember everything you need to do is a source of significant stress.  Relieve some of that stress by keeping a notebook with you and writing things down.
2. Prioritize.  If you are dealing with urgent and important issues most of the day, you are firefighting, not prioritizing.
3. Delegate what you can when you can.  Remember, only Superman cannot delegate.
4. Make time to exercise.  Try to join a team because doing so will provide additional motivation to keep going and to make time for exercise.
5. Embrace technology as a tool to make your work easier and limit or reduce your stress level.
6. Seek out experts with whom you can discuss or correspond about new and/or difficult issues or decisions since what is new or unknown to you may be something they have dealt with effectively many times.
7. Work less and work with less stress by creating [or borrowing] policies and procedures that will make you or your entire department if applicable more effective and efficient.
8. Know when you have more than enough on your plate.  Tell your manager so that additional work can be delegated elsewhere.  Better yet, suggest that the workload in the credit department be re balanced so that it is distributed more equitably.
9. Avoid the temptation to dive in and lose yourself in the minutia of doing the work.  Planning, strategizing and prioritizing are important elements in stress reduction.
10. When disputes arise, particularly with customers or sales personnel, look for ways to build consensus and find areas in which you can compromise.  In difficult situations, even small compromises can reduce the stress for everyone including credit department personnel.

Michael C. Dennis is the author of “1001 Collection Tools and Tips.”