Employers are being encouraged to take steps to help alleviate stress in the work place as part of national stress awareness day.
Bosses are being asked to recognise the effects on business of having employees becoming stressed due to problems at work and home.
“Bosses can ill afford to ignore workplace stress as left unchecked the impact can be felt throughout the organisation,” said Nicola Clark, director at Investors in People.
“It’s easy to look at stress as a personal issue and, of course its effect on individuals can be very damaging. However, stress is also bad for business, affecting morale and motivation amongst the wider workforce.”
Investors in People claims that nearly a third of workers consider stress to be a major issue in their organisation.
Domestic issues are more stressful than work issues for 68% of workers according to research by legal advisors, Croner. However, only 14% of those surveyed said they never got stressed at work.
Having a heavy workload was cited as the biggest cause of stress at work with nearly a quarter of the vote, followed by poor working relationships with 14%.
“Although workplace factors feature lower down our stress trigger league, stress is still a big issue for employers who must treat it as they would any other workplace health hazard,” said Gillian Dowling, employment technical consultant at Croner.
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2006
