Stress. Small word, big impact. And the chances are that most of us have felt it at some stage in our life, particularly in the workplace. Are companies taking their staff’s mental health seriously enough?
Everybody knows there is no longer such a thing as a job for life. Scott John, a mortgage adviser, knew this. He took time off work after he was reduced to tears by anxiety over his performance. What he did not know was that he had actually met his latest sales target. This was the day before he threw himself 150ft from a car park.
The message seems clear: Britain’s workers are stressed. We are working harder and longer hours than any other European country, including Germany. Short-term contracts, company downsizing and diminishing union power are al bolstering pressure in the workplace. And in a consumer age ceaselessly tempting people to spend on themselves and their families, it’s not getting any easier.
There is little doubt that stress can be mentally and physically damaging: most recently, an ex-post office boss received a £175,000 payout, after developing panic attacks and chest pains at work. It’s no wonder a report from America has claimed that workplace stress is as great a risk as smoking.
The confederation of British Industry (CBI) estimates that sickness absence is costing British business £12 billion a year, equivalent to £533 per worker, from 187 million lost working days, It is not clear exactly how many of these days are lost trough stress, but figures from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have repeatedly shown that work-related stress, depression and anxiety are the second most commonly reported group of conditions behind backache and repetitive strain injury.
According to finance and accountancy recruiter, Stephen Beagent Associates, 66 per cent of staff in the sector are stressed, 33 per cent saying they were stressed. More importantly, however, 86 per cent of respondents said that their company did not have a recognised stress management policy.
Stress management
Schofield Highs is one recruiter which is attempting to address increasing pressure in the workplace. It has stress management sessions available to its staff which its managing director, Peter Schofield, takes very seriously. He want to be taught self management whereby they learn that stress is a result of illogical thought processes and are given practical advice by counsellors to deal with them. He gives Appointments an example: “I used to arrive to work in a foul mood because I found driving very stressful, but learning about these thought processes made me realise my stress was illogical. I then had to appreciate how other drivers were feeling and thinking.” This may seem fairly immaterial but it emphasises that stress is personal: what distresses one person, another may take in their stride.
Schofield Hughes’ session takes this into account. “We have a happier workforce,” Mr Schofield says. “We have personal development reviews which give staff the opportunity to express their feeling and release their frustrations. In the past, if staff in a company said something bad they could be sacked, and the employer could easily find someone else. But recruiters and employers can’t afford to do this in this age, where the staff are knowledge-based instead of industrially based.”
Mr Scofield strongly believes that stress has genuinely increased with the times. He denies that the issue has been overblown by the press, and in someway a fashionable phenomenon, giving people and excuse not to deal with everyday problems. He believes working is much more stressful than a generation ago, and not just because there is no longer such a thing as a job for life. “The dynamic speed of life is changing the work place. People’s expectations are higher – the opportunities for success have increased so the price of both success and failure are very high. What is different from a generation ago is that it is not the workload that is higher, but the opportunities. Having the chance to become an overnight millionaire can be extremely stressful.”
One indicator of how things have changed is the attitude to mental illness as a result of stress. Mr Schofield explains: “In the US, for example, everyone has analysts. The British used to laugh at this, but as the speed of life is catching up with the American way, people appreciate they need help at times to cope.”
But there is still a stigma attached to stress related mental illness according to Sandi Manni, author of Psychology goes to Work and a lecturer in occupational psychology at the University of Central Lancashire. “There is still that ‘if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen’ attitude if you were to approach your boss and say you couldn’t cope,” she explains.
This is an issue that recently divided delegates at the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ annual conference in Edinburgh. Some members identified the existence of a “trauma industry” and “compensation culture” in the light of reports of six figure sums being awarded to former employees suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dr Derek Summerfield, of St George’s Hospital, London, said that too many psychiatrists were applying the diagnoses of PTSD to experiences that people should expect to experience everyday, He said that the workplace was described as traumatic when people were just doing their jobs.
Ms Manni identifies this as people confusing stress and worry. She says that there is a kudos surrounding stress. She says. “We live in a time where people are expected to say their jobs are very stressful.” It is in this context that people label things as stress, when they are simply worrying.
Overload
She does admit, though, that in her experience work as a whole is generally getting more stressful and she identifies it as being an “overload”. “This can vary from information overload, to people overload, to work overload. It’s when we put more on out bodies than our minds can take,” she says. “The downsizing and redundancies going on in companies leaves people doing the work of two people and juggling different tasks.”
Morag Slesser, a chartered clinical psychologist based in Edinburgh, also identifies work place stress as a state of overload. She sees patients referred by their GPs, whose cases range from harassment at work to depression, but the majority of her patients suffer from this stress overload. But she is keen to point out that people feel pressure due to a combination of factors, some times occurring out of work, which will then manifest themselves in the work place.
Regardless of whether stress is increasing with the times, Ms Slesser feels there will always be some people who can cope, and other who can’t. “It takes a type of person to get stressed,” she says. “One patient I had worked in an accountancy firm and his boss would write down instructions to his staff on yellow Post-It noted and stick them to their desks. This man would panic about these notes, as though has had done something wrong and was note doing his job properly, even though everybody else was getting these notes. Although he was in fact very good at his job, he was a negative person and he was misinterpreting the situation in a way a confident person would not.”
The type of advice given to her patients by Ms Slesser ranges from managing time effectively to communicating with colleagues and asking a boss to prioritise given tasks, to generally thinking more positively. The essence of her advice is that it is individually-based, not organisationally-based.
Ms Manni, an occupational psychiatrist, wants to stress coped with at a more organisational level. “Companies at the moment deal with it in terms of individual responsibility. This means that companies addressing stress have a counselling service for staff.” But according to Ms Manni, companies are not taking this seriously enough. They are just playing up service to something they know exists.” She says: What are required are full company audits to really gage what is going on. But organisations are reluctant because it is cheaper to have stress councillors. There is also the fear factor – the fear of knowing fully what’s going on and then having the obligation to respond.” She would like to see more training in companies, and schemes like the chance to work from home occasionally to avoid congestion. Ms Manni adds: The message that needs to be put across is that if stress is reduced it is beneficial to the staff and therefore for the organisation as a whole.
Dot.comers are feeling the strain too. Aaron Bunning, a 26 year old Silicon Valley workaholic, died of a drug overdose last week held up in a New York hotel room. Vice-President of Upside.com, he was in meetings to set up a deal worth $100 million for a new radio venture when he died.
Bunnel was a victim of a work culture in the Valley that has driven many of it leading lights to work up to 150 hours a week. Sleep tends to be looked upon as an optional extra.
And it’s catching on in the UK. Our dot.comers are working longer hours I response to the end of the lover affair between investors and dot.com start-ups. Twelve hour days are common, and, though that is nowhere near the level of the like of Bunnel, it is a worrying trend for the industry. Success there will be, no doubt, but at what cost for those who fail?
Top tips to beat stress
- Avoid uncertainty. Know what is expected of you. Ask managers for appraisals and constructive criticism,
- If you workload is too much, say so. You will gain respect coming up with solutions.
- Make time to relax and reflect. A break is important.
- Don’t try to take on too much. Learn to delegate.
- Establish good, honest relationships with colleagues.
- Learn to prioritise tasks. Try using lists.
- Always finish the job. Don’t leave tasks until the morning.
- Don’t be distracted. Let colleagues know if you can’t be disturbed.
- Learn to say no. If you don’t have the time, explain you can’t help.