Job-related stress is one of the biggest causes of illness in the EU. Yet many people don't take it seriously - especially employers. A conference this week is the start of a campaign to prevent stress in the workplace
Do you feel that in your job you often have too much work to do in too little time? Do you feel that your personal work input in your company is never acknowledged, and that you aren't given either positive or negative feedback on projects you complete? Do you feel undermined or intimidated by more senior members of staff on a regular basis?
If you answer "yes" to one or more of the above questions, then you are most likely suffering from stress at work. And, given that a recent survey in Britain found that one in five workers reported feeling very or extremely stressed by work, you are far from being alone.
While the concept of workplace stress is not new, for years it has been ignored by companies, and those suffering from it were often made to feel like they simply weren't up to the job. However, in recent years, companies have got the wake-up call following high payments in the courts: a welder was awarded £51,000 - £50,000 of which was for stress caused by intimidation in the workplace which led to health problems. And a garda was awarded £52,200, of which £40,000 was for stress and anxiety created by problems at work.
Many employers now realise if they don't make some effort to address the problems of stress in the workplace, they put themselves at risk of workers making ress-related compensation claims. Recognising the need for healthier working conditions, the European Union has designated this year as Workplace Stress Prevention Year.
Work-related stress affects 41 million workers in the EU. This figure represents 28 per cent of the workforce. While there are no statistics on the numbers suffering from workplace stress in Ireland, the subject has gained much more attention in recent years. For example, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions brought out a booklet on workplace stress in Ireland last year, and "Workplace Stress - It's Time For Solutions" is the theme and title of the Health and Safety Authority annual conference in Dublin Castle over the next two days.
Putting policies in place for handling workplace stress is high on the agenda of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), according to its research and information officer, Oliver Donohoe.
"We want to locate it in the broader work/life balance debate . . . The old idea of a stress being good for you is really a confusion between the idea of challenge and stress. We don't accept that the price to be paid for a successful economy is a stressful workplace," says Donohoe.
The ICTU booklet on workplace stress in Ireland notes two key strategies for reducing work-related stress: a partnership approach between managers and the workforce to plan, implement and monitor organisational measures for stress prevention; and stress-management training and resources to enhance workers' coping skills.
The Health and Safety Authority conference is the first event in an eight-month campaign, which will also include seminars around the country on stress prevention in the workplace. "Preventing workplace stress not only improves the lives of people at work, it also makes good business sense, since poor health and safety practice results in high costs from sickness absence, low morale and lost production," says Tom Beegan, director general of the Health and Safety Authority.
While the emphasis on "good business sense" may irritate employees suffering from back pain, headaches and gastrointestinal pains due to prolonged work-related stress, it seems that focusing on the costs in terms of poor production due to staff turnover and/or low morale is the only real way of making employers take stress reduction in the workplace seriously.
Work Positive, a risk-assessment approach to dealing with workplace stress, will be launched at the conference. Piloted in Scotland and Ireland over the past two years, Work Positive is a tool which in-house personnel can use to identify areas of stress in their business.
"Over the last 10 years, the main focus has been on looking at the individual and stress with employee-assistance programmes which provide individual counselling, but now the focus is moving towards ways to stop people getting stressed," says Miriam O'Connor, workplace programme manager at the Health Education Board in Scotland. The Work Positive pack, which is available from the Health and Safety Authority, includes questionnaires for employees and a CD which analyses the results so that each company can identify its own "hot spots" in terms of stress.
In Britain, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published some excellent material on workplace stress. "The HSE has found that workplace stress is most prevalent among employees in larger organisations, and in particular those in professions including teaching, nursing, public administration and social work," says Stuart Bristow from the Psychosocial Issues Policy Unit of the HSE.
Interestingly, other research at the HSE also found that managers do nothing about stress because they are unconvinced it is a problem, they do not regard the effects as serious, they believe it is an individual weakness and they do not know what their legal duties are.
The HSE guides to work-related stress divides work-related stressors into seven categories:
1. The culture of the workplace (e.g. when there is a culture of blame when things go wrong and denial of potential problems)
2. Demands of the job (too much or too little to do, too much or too little training)
3. Lack of control over work activities
4. Poor relationships with others (including bullying or racial/sexual harassment)
5. Poor job delineation
6. Lack of support from managers or co-workers
7. Uncertainty about the future
In Britain and Ireland, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust has also become involved in personal safety training programmes for employees. The trust was initially set up by Diana Lamplugh following the death of her daughter Suzy, who was abducted and murdered in the course of her working day as an estate agent in 1986.
Peter Toner is a Dublin-based trainer who has adapted the personal safety training programmes of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust to help employees deal with a stressful workplace. Helping individuals understand the relationship between aggression, fear, tension and stress, and training them to recognise and control their own personal triggers to aggression and fear, Toner aims to give individuals more control over their personal space in the work context. His training also helps individuals learn how to manage communication, anger and confrontation.
"We have more words for fear than the Eskimos have for snow," says Toner, who believes that stress is caused by an accumulation of various forms of fear - nervousness and awkwardness about work scenarios right up to terror and panic.
In his work, Toner refers to the "ladder of aggression", noting that being a long-term recipient of sarcasm, ridicule and/or personal space invasion can at times be more hurtful than short-term experience of harassment or physical violence.
"If you consider that many people use up to 20 per cent of their energy just to cope, then you begin to see the hidden costs of stress and tension. " says Toner.
•For further information, contact the Health and Safety Authority, 10 Hogan Place, Dublin 2, tel: 01-6147000, website: www.hsa.ie/osh
