According to Health and Safety Executive (HSE) research about half a million people in the UK experience work-related stress at a level they believe is making them ill, while around five million people in the UK feel "very" or "extremely" stressed by their work. This added up to a total of 12.8 million working days were lost to stress, depression and anxiety in 2003/4.
Today, Wednesday 2 November, is National Stress Awareness Day. Organised for the eighth year running by the International Stress Management Association UK (ISMA UK), the theme for this year is “Making the Management Standards Work: How to apply the Standards in your workplace”. To download a copy of the standards and view other HSE resources related to stress at work click here.
To coincide with Stress Awareness Day, Acadamee offer their 10 tips on work-related stress:
1. Check that you have systems in place to help people who think they’re beginning to suffer from stress. Who can they turn to? Is their privacy guaranteed? Are they likely to be heard? The Health and Safety Executive recommend that a Risk Assessment be carried out to help you identify both actual and potential problems.
2. Show that you’re aware of the problem by talking to staff and getting their views – you might even use a questionnaire to find out what the stressors might be.
3. Encourage managers to have the same attitude – to show that they’re open to people’s concerns and will listen attentively, and privately, to any issues that arise.
4. Make sure that your staff are sufficiently well-trained to do the jobs that they’re doing, and that they’re actually in the right jobs. Control over their work and clarity about what they’re supposed to be doing is essential to reduce stress in employees.
5. Encourage a good work-life balance. Spending too much time at work, or thinking about work, doesn’t give people the opportunity to relax.
6. Make sure that you’re communicating effectively with your staff. For example, lack of information about changes that are going to take place can make some people feel uneasy and thus increase their stress.
7. Involve your staff as much as possible in any improvements or changes that you want to make in your systems or procedures. They will often know the best way to implement these changes anyway, so including them in the decision-making process increases their sense of control and should ensure the changes stick.
8. Where possible, provide flexibility in the jobs that people do – either to do things differently, or to do different things.
9. Where an employee seems to be suffering from stress, encourage him or her to see their doctor. Brushing it aside and hoping it will get better won’t work! Nor will getting rid of the individual solve the problem if it’s endemic to the workplace.
10. Finally, accept the fact that stress is a real issue in the workplace and that it can lead to thousands of hours of downtime if not tackled. You have a legal responsibility as an employer to ensure that staff are not made ill by the work they do, but if you act responsibly and with compassion you can reduce or eliminate the risks of stress and ensure that your company continues to function effectively.
