Yesterday was UK Stress Awareness Day, and amidst the discussions some recent figures provide sobering reading:

5 million days are taken off work due to stress, costing employers £460m in lost wages

A third of employees feel they wouldn’t be able to speak openly to their manager about stress

Only 22% of workers felt that their manager takes active steps to help them manage stress.

How organisations deal with employees suffering from stress says a lot about the culture of their workplace. It is very concerning that nearly half of employees believe that if a person takes sick leave due to stress, their employers will think that it is just an excuse for some time off, and 42% think that stress is seen as ‘a sign of weakness’. As with many mental health problems, there is a perceived stigma, and an unwillingness to openly discuss the issue.

There is a definite need for employers to have structures in place for helping to prevent stress, and assisting employees who are having difficulties. And while having a thorough approach to Health and Wellbeing has a moral/ethical component, it is also worth considering that a happy, healthy workforce is an effective workforce. Staff members who are feeling over-worked and unable to cope can’t contribute their best to an organisation, so it’s also in an organisation’s financial interests to ensure that their workplace is one that deals positively with staff and their needs.

There are many approaches and ideas when it comes to reducing workplace stress, and these will vary depending on the business, type of industry, and organisation size.

But some key factors are: encouraging better work/life balance, providing flexible working arrangements, teaching ways of recognising symptoms of stress, pro-actively dealing with conflict, and fostering open communication between employees and managers. Essentially though, dedication to identifying causes, and treating the issue

with the seriousness it requires, are the keys to combating workplace stress – so that maybe by Stress Awareness Day 2014, fewer employees will feel that they have to hide the problems they are dealing with.

For further general information and reading on this issue, see organisations such as Mind
UK and the NHS’s Health4Work.

For assistance with Health and Wellbeing in your workplace, contact:
info@amalgamate-safety.com or telephone 0141 244 0181.