2 November 2004 - TUC Survey Shows Increase in Stress in the Workplace
It seems the causes of this increase in work related stress, being 58% of the workforce, is due to the following factors:
- Increase in workloads.
- Change within workplace.
- Staff cuts.
- Long hours.
- Bullying in the workplace.
The survey of the safety reps has revealed that it depends on size of business and public and private sectors as to the levels of stress. Companies with over 1,000 employees had a figure of 63% stress, whereas smaller businesses' figure was 58%.
Sick pay, lost production and NHS costs, related to stress within the UK workplace, is a very costly £7billion per year, with lost working days being 6.5 million.
The conclusions offered from the survey of the safety reps state that perhaps more is required to tackle the growing stress in the workplace and will be submitted to the Stress Awareness Day on Wednesday, 3 November 2004.
Mr Brendan Barber, TUC General Secretary commented:
"The fact that people are more stressed than ever before is bad news for workers and bad news for business. We know that long hours and dense workloads are stressful. We know that workers want a better work/life balance, yet some employers insist on trying to squeeze every last drop of sweat out of their workforce.
"A stressed employee is not a productive employee. Things like a failure to replace staff are bad for workers, their families and the employers' productivity. Unless bosses start to seriously tackle stress and the causes of stress then they will continue to lose many days every year to workers off sick and many hours of productivity from their demoralised workforce".
Further information can be accessed by clicking the following: Trades Union Congress - Stress levels at work are rising
Article by Alexandra Johnston
