Work Place Stress?

"Workplace stress is the biggest cause of sickness absence in the UK, resulting in 13.4 million lost working days each year, a new study claims.

A report by Henderson Global Investors Sustainable & Responsible Investment (SRI) team says that almost one fifth of the UK’s workforce suffers from high stress levels.

The research, released to coincide with National Stress Awareness Day, calculates that stress costs employers in the region of £400 million a year and society as whole an estimated £3.7 billion.

The TUC, meanwhile, claims that stress levels in UK workplaces are on the rise, with six out of ten employees complaining that they are stressed while at work, a two per cent increase from 2002.

According to the TUC, the main reasons for stress at work are excessive or increased workloads, changes at work, staff cuts, long hours and workplace bullying."

Pete's Points

In recent ILO studies Australians have been shown to be among the hardest workers in the world - indeed by comparison the people in the UK could be considered 'layabouts', so if they have 'stress' that causes the sort of damage that has been found just imagine how much more damage there is here!

As for the "work place bullying" I have to say I am not impressed. In my experience most of the people who complain about "work place bullying" are the layabouts who have been spoken to by a supervisor telling them to get off their fat posteriors and do some work or be assisted with their career development. Obviously they do not appreciate being told that they might actually need to do some work to earn their remuneration so they resort to lodging a complaint about their boss and his/her bullying.

I am sure that there are genuine cases out there, they are NOT in my experience frequent enough to warrant inclusion in a study unless you naively believe everything you are told.