An NHS report out today advised employers that they need to pay more attention to the levels of stress and anxiety in the workplace.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said that the cost of work related mental illness was £28bn which represents a quarter of the total sick bill for the United Kingdom.

The report suggests that poor managers were the biggest cause of problems.  However it also said that simple measures such as allowing flexible working, providing staff with positive feedback and giving extra days holiday as a thank you could cut the impact by as much as a third.  NICE also urged employers to invest in more training for managers and mentoring for staff to help support their career development.

Counting the cost

Workplace stress is estimated to cost U.K. employers £28.3bn a year largely due to lost productivity, paying staff whilst they are off work and replacing ill employees.

NICE has designed a cost calculator to show the potential savings of better supporting stressed staff in the workplace.  It suggests that for the average firm of 1,000 staff a saving of £250,000 a year could be made.

Professor Cary Cooper, a leading expert in workplace psychology at Lancaster University helped compile the reports recommendations.  He said “You cannot underestimate the importance of saying ‘Well done’ to staff, but so often it does not happen.  Managers will tell you when you are doing something wrong, but not when you are doing it right.”

Recession

However, the problem is not just to do with staff taking time off from work.

“Presenteeism, where people come to work but add no value, is if anything more of a problem, especially during a recession. People are so scared that they go to work when they are not fit to” said Professor Cooper.

A recent survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) revealed that nearly a quarter of workers in the UK describe their own mental health as either moderate or poor, yet nearly all of them continued to work regularly.

The recommendations were welcomed by the government’s national director for health and work, Dame Carol Black who produced a report advising employers to take more of an active role in promoting good health for their employees back in 2008, saying that it provided “clear, practical advice to promote mental well-being”.

Who should take action?

Employers in organisations of all sizes – in larger organisations this might include chief executives and board members, human resources directors and senior managers.

Trade unions and other employee representatives – this will usually be the owner-manager and in medium-sized businesses the business manager.

What action should they take?

Adopt an organisation-wide approach to promoting the mental wellbeing of all employees, working in partnership with them. This approach should integrate the promotion of mental wellbeing into all policies and practices concerned with managing people, including those related to employment rights and working conditions.

Ensure that the approach takes account of the nature of the work, the workforce and the characteristics of the organisation.

Promote a culture of participation, equality and fairness that is based on open communication and inclusion.

Create an awareness and understanding of mental wellbeing and reduce the potential for discrimination and stigma related to mental health problems.

Ensure processes for job design, selection, recruitment, training, development and appraisal promote mental wellbeing and reduce the potential for stigma and discrimination. Employees should have the necessary skills and support to meet the demands of a job that is worthwhile and offers opportunities for development and progression.

Employees should be fully supported throughout organisational change and situations of uncertainty.

Ensure that groups of employees who might be exposed to stress but might be less likely to be included in the various approaches for promoting mental wellbeing have the equity of opportunity to participate. These groups include part-time workers, shift workers and migrant workers.

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It’s common these days for many people to feel stressed at work.

Sometimes it’s the nature of the work itself that causes these feelings of stress, other times it’s the sheer volume of work that needs doing and the constant pressure of deadlines that have to be met can make today’s workplace a stressful and frustrating place to be.

The following 5 tips may help to relieve some of that built up stress…

1.    Smile

It’s a simple fact that smiling makes you feel good.  Not only that, a genuine smile can help brighten the day of those that receive its good wishes.  Not many simple acts can help lift your mood as quickly as a smile and as well as being completely free, its benefits are shared with those around you.

Don’t feel like smiling?  It doesn’t matter as it’s the physical act of smiling which helps reduce stress and helps you to feel better.  Just try it!

2.    Breathing exercises

At times when your stress levels become excessive instead of venting your steam at your unwitting colleagues, try slowly counting to 10.  Whilst counting try to slow your breathing by taking deep breaths.  Not too deep mind you as you don’t want to end up either passing out or hyper ventilating as although this may temporarily reduce your stress levels, chances are you’ll end up being given the kiss of life by Keith from your I.T. department…

3.    Have a massage at work

Sitting for up to 8 hours a day in front of a computer can take its toll on the human body.  Although the benefits of massage have been well documented, it’s often difficult to find the time to fit in an hourly long massage treatment in the evenings or weekends.

Luckily there are now companies that specialise in providing qualified massage therapist services in the workplace.  Treatments durations can range from 5 – 30 minutes and can either be delivered at the desk or in a separate meeting room and are an ideal way for companies to increase employee morale and motivation.

4.    Adopt a positive attitude

The great philosopher Marcus Aurelius once said “Our life is what our thoughts make it”.

Therefore if we think that we are stressed at work, we will inevitably feel stressed at work.  Changing how we feel through adopting a positive internal dialogue can help ensure that all problems are viewed as challenges that can and will be overcome.

5.    Listen to some relaxing music

Music can have a deeply calming effect on us all and there are a whole host of relaxation CDs available to create a stress free environment.  To prevent you’re co-workers from complaining about your choice of relaxation music you may need to use head phones plugged into your PC or ipod.

If you’ve already tried all of the above techniques and you’re still feeling close to assaulting your co-workers with the contents of your in-tray it may be worth taking a 10 minute walk in the fresh air to help put things into perspective.

Sometimes it’s worth remembering Richard Carlson’s wise words “Don’t sweat the small stuff… and that it’s all small stuff”.

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The issue of stress at work is a business-critical one. If it is not managed properly stress will cause employee health and absence problems, and reduce individual and organisational productivity.

However, too few employers understand what stress is, how it affects people, or how to identify and manage it.  The following article by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development looks at the negative impact stress can cause organisations and the benefits associated with an effective corporate health & well-being strategy.

CIPD – Building the Business Case for Managing Stress in the Workplace

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Workplace Stress

Stress in the workplace is a growing problem for individuals and employers and government. HSE research finds that the prevalence of work-related stress has increased from 820 per 100,000 people employed in the previous 12 months in 1974 to 1,300 per 100,000 people employed in the previous 12 months in 2005.

More than 30% of respondents to the CIPD 2008 Absence Management survey identified an increase in stress-related absence, with just 11% reporting a decrease.

The growing impact of work-related stress on public health is reflected by the increasing proportion of incapacity benefit claims that are the result of mental or behavioural problems, including stress. The proportion of Incapacity Benefit (IB) claimants suffering from such conditions has increased from 28% in 1997 to nearly 40% today (Department for Work and Pensions 2006).

It is important to consider some of the reasons for the increase, because it is only by pinning down the causes of growing levels of stress and other mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety, that solutions can be identified.

One likely reason is changes in the nature of employment in the last decade and a half, which have led to an intensification of work. The economist Francis Green finds that work intensity increased significantly between 1992 and 2001 (Green 2001). Green identified a number of factors that have contributed to the intensification of work over this period, including competitive pressures increasingly being passed on to employees, and the decline of union representation and power. He also cites as a cause of work intensification the introduction of HR policies designed to encourage greater worker involvement and commitment, including incentives that link effort with pay. The final factor reported by Green as contributing to increased work intensity is technological advances. The development of the Internet, emails, mobile phones, laptops and Blackberrys have increased the pace of work and also blurred the line between work and home for many employees, making it harder for them to switch off and recharge their batteries.

Other developments that over the last two decades may well have contributed to the increased prevalence of stress and other mental health problems in society as a whole include an increase in social isolation as a result of the breakdown of traditional communities and the growth in single occupancy households.

In addition, increased reliance on electronic communication technologies such as the Internet, emails, instant messaging and social networking websites such as Facebook and Bebo mean that people are no longer having as many of the face-toface conversations with family and friends that help put life and its problems into perspective.

Finally, the huge increase in personal debt over the last few years, concerns over higher living costs and, more recently, growing worries over job security against a backdrop of rising unemployment, are also likely to undermine positive mental health and increase stress levels.

All of these trends are likely to continue and increase, particularly as the economic environment becomes tougher, putting people under greater pressure than ever before, both at work and at home.

Against this background, the business case for employers to invest in the well-being of their employees by taking steps to identify and manage stress more effectively becomes cast iron.

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81% of employers now publicly report their commitment to health & wellbeing compared with 68% in 2007

According to the Business Action on Health Campaign by Business in the Community (BITC) there has been a “dramatic” increase in the number of FTSE100 companies reporting their progress on health and wellbeing using quantitative measures, up from 7% last year to 23% in 2008.

Louise Aston, campaign director of Business Action on Health, said: “Significant milestones have been reached over the past year and the issue of health and wellbeing in the workplace has, it seems, finally reached its tipping point. However, we still have a long way to go and ambitious targets to meet.

“We have committed ourselves to raising the proportion of FTSE100 companies reporting and measuring on employee health using quantitative measures from 23% to 75% by 2011.”
Speaking at The Business Action on Heath Work Well International Food Fest in London, Christine Hancock, director of Oxford Health Alliance, addressed the problems in promoting health and wellbeing to employees.

She said: “The problem at the moment is that we do not get the ‘Heineken effect’. Initiatives do not reach all parts of organisations. Initiatives mostly address employees who are fitter or already interested.”

She praised businesses that have made moves in this area. “What we need are really simple key performance indicators – for example, find out how many smokers there are in a workplace and focus reducing this number or find out employees’ body mass indexes and reduce these. Really simple things can have much more benefit.”

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