The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) define stress as "the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them".
Don't confuse positive pressure, which can create a 'buzz', and the harmful effects of pressure that is beyond a person's ability to cope.
Why do people talk about stress so much today?
There is a growing awareness of the importance of health and safety and recognition that healthy employees make a greater contribution to a business. People are more aware of the harmful effects of stress in workplaces but it is not new...
Why do we need to tackle stress?
Stress is costly, especially for small firms where cover for sick employees is difficult to arrange. Stress can reduce the effectiveness of employees and lead to higher rates of absence. Research estimates that 12.8 million working days were lost to stress, depression and anxiety in 2004/5. Each new case of stress leads to an average of 29 days off work. Work-related stress costs society about £3.7 billion every year (at 1995/6 prices).
Work-related stress is widespread. About 1 in 5 people in a stress study said that they found their work either very stressful or extremely stressful.
What form does stress take?
Work-related stress is not an illness but it can contribute to problems with ill health. As well as anxiety and depression, stress has been associated with heart disease, back pain and gastrointestinal illnesses.”
http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=815
Kate Gare
No comments:
Post a Comment