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While it can be healthy for individuals to experience
challenges within their lives that result in a certain
degree of pressure, too much can be harmful and destructive
to health. Stress is the reaction that people have to
excessive pressure or other types of demand placed on
them and it arises when they worry that they cannot
cope.
Individuals may be subject to pressure in the workplace
or in their personal lives, or it may be a combination
of both. Occupational stress poses a risk to most businesses;
findings from a Confederation of British Industry (CBI)
absence survey indicate that between 30 and 60 % of
absence is considered to be stress related. Employers
have a duty of care to protect the health, safety and
welfare of their employees and a duty to assess the
risks to both physical and psychological health.
There are a number of approaches that organisations
can take to help reduce stress at work:
- On an individual level the employee can avail of
counselling provided through an Employee Assistance
Programme, to help them deal with any issues.
- Organisations can choose to conduct a stress audit,
to obtain employees views and subsequently direct
resources to reduce or eliminate any sources of stress.
In 2004 the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) launched
their Management Standards to help assess and tackle
the main causes of work-related stress. The Standards
focus on 6 aspects of work:
- Demands - includes issues like workload, work patterns
and work environment.
- Control - how much say the person has in the way
they do their work.
- Support - the encouragement and resources provided
by the organisation; line management and colleagues.
- Relationships - promoting positive working to avoid
conflict and dealing with unacceptable behaviour.
- Role - do individuals understand their role within
the organisation and how the organisation ensures
that the person does not have conflicting roles.
- Change - whether organisational change is managed
and communicated within the organisation.
A stress audit will provide organisations with an analysis
of how they are performing against these standards and
indicate where action needs to be taken to generate
improvement. It involves selected employees completing
a questionnaire which Staffcare subsequently analyse
and can involve facilitating focus groups to obtain
qualitative information.
Please contact us to discuss your requirements in detail,
or to simply obtain further information.
If you would like to test your own personal stress
levels, you can go to our Online
Stress Test.
Online Stress Test
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