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Stress In The Workplace
According to the Health and Safety Executive, work-related stress accounts for over a third of all new incidences of ill health and the cost of stress to British industry is £370 million a year, while the cost to society as a whole could be as high as £3.75 billion.
The HSE's definition of work-related stress is: 'The adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them at work'.
There is no specific legislation which regulates stress in the workplace, but the prevention of stress is included in the general duty of an employer to his or her employees under the following:
- the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 - places a duty on every employer to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all their employees. ‘Health’ includes mental health
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- the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 - places a duty on employers to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to health and safety to which employees are exposed whilst they are at work for the purpose of identifying the measures they need to take to comply with the law
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- the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 applies to employees with a substantial long-term mental (or physical) impairment
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- civil law - an employer owes a ‘duty of care’ to individual employees in the course of their employment. This is the area of law with the most important implications for work-related stress.
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What Can Cause Workplace Stress?
Work related stress, is most commonly associated with the effects of unreasonable pressures of work. Whilst this is most often seen as workload related, there are other factors that can cause stress, such as:
- task-related factors - the task being physically or mentally beyond the individual’s capacity, information overload etc
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- interpersonal factors - day-to-day interaction with people, abuse and harassment
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- role ambiguity - the individual has no clear idea of what is expected of them
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- role conflict - opposing demands are made on an individual by different people
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- little or no recognition for work done
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- personal threat - threat to personal safety or fear of redundancy or dismissal
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Potential Health Problems Associated with Stress at Work
Stress triggers a number of changes in the body’s processes. These changes are often complex and involve ‘levels’ such as:
- emotional - fatigue, anxiety, poor motivation in general
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- cognitive - making mistakes, having accidents
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- behavioural - deteriorating relationships with colleagues, irritability, indecisiveness, absenteeism etc
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- physiological - increased complaints regarding health such as headaches, dizziness and general aches and pains.
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FREE Director's BriefingPosted: May -
2010The Barbour Director's Briefing: Stress in the Workplace is a two page, clear summary of this key topic important to Director's and management, including guidelines of work-related stress and recommendations for employers.
Click for more...
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You can find out more about stress in the workplace, and how it affects your working environment and employees, through signing up for a Free Trial of our service. This gives you unrestricted access to all the relevant information about workplace stress, plus all the other health and safety issues your organisation should be aware of.
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