What is Work Related Stress?

While stress at work is well known, many people who have not experienced it themselves do not understand it. Work related stress is defined as the adverse reaction people have when coping with more than they believe they can handle, and is prevalent in many types of industries, especially those with unpaid overtime, lower pay, and high-pressure environments that demand perfection or high-turnaround. The result is often a level of stress that results in physical illness and potentially the mental inability to cope. Men and women are both susceptible to stress and stress related disorders, although studies indicate that many women are between 6% and 10% more susceptible to stress than men.

Dealing with Stress

Tackling stress at work can be a difficult endeavour but most employers start out by offering training courses to help employees manage and deal with stress. In addition, it is important to perform a stress assessment and then attempt to remove stressful factors from the working environment. Common stressors include bullying, violence at work, sexual harassment, inability to perform a job, improper training, threat of job loss, not enough work, too much work, an apathetic environment, or an environment where it is necessary to make sales or keep clients in order to keep a position.

A Common Mental Health Problem

Work related stress is an increasingly common mental health problem caused by various issues that result in pressure on an employee. As an employer, it is your responsibility to preserve the mental and physical health of your employees to a reasonable extent, and one of the mental health issues you have to tackle is stress. Stress can cause physical illness, debilitating health problems, and depression, and in 2011 alone, resulted in over 400,000 leaves of absence for 29 days or more. Because stress is unfortunately common, every employer should take the steps to recognise, reduce, and prevent stress in the workplace in order to save money and the health of the people in their employ.

Is Work Stress the Employers Responsibility?

Stress at work is the responsibility of both the employee and the employer. Anyone with 5 or more employees is required by law to perform mental and physical health risk assessment and then do anything practical in order to reduce these risks. This includes reducing pressure on specific employees, and providing the appropriate work stress training. Because stress costs the industry billions each year, you can actually save money by taking action. In fact, the average company implementing stress prevention methods reduces stress related leave by 20-40% within two years.

Stress At Work and Mental Health Training

We offer Highfield Stress Management training and other mental health and wellbeing training courses including the NEBOSH Working with Wellbeing. These courses allow you to recognise and define the causes of stress in your work environment before they cause issues. They also allow your employees to learn to recognise stress and stressful situations before they cause health problems. Finally, the stress management classes allow employees to learn to deal with and manage stress so that they handle stressful situations better and respond better to pressure or requests. The result is a happier, healthier work environment where everyone benefits.

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