We all feel stress from time to time. It’s just part of modern day living. Fortunately not all the stress we find ourselves under will affect our health. But if the level stress does become too great it can affect our physical and mental well being.
One area in life where stress is prevalent is at work. It is very important for employers and employees to be aware of stress in the workplace. Meeting production targets, striving to win bonus payments and merely producing enough business to keep the company a going concern is very stressful for management, staff and workers alike.
While workplace stress may be ideal for giving any business that extra edge in the face of competition, it can also lead to health problems and key workers having to take time off through illness. If the problem of stress is not properly dealt with it can have a detrimental effect on even the most efficient of businesses enjoying the best of industrial relations.
It is essential that employers are aware of the effects stress has on their employees and that they take the necessary steps to avoid it. Britain’s Health and Safety Executive puts a large part of the onus on employers for avoiding stress on their employees.
The HSE demand that employers instigate procedures within the workplace to ensure that the staff and workers they are responsible for do not suffer undue stress.
An employer should also be approachable if any of his staff or workers feel they are coming under stress and should be prepared to take the necessary steps to remedy this.
There are laws on the British statute books, such as the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work regulation, passed 18 years later, that place an obligation on employers to ensure the welfare of their employees, including not making them unwell though undue stress in the workplace.
The workers also have a role to play in ensuring their health and safety at work, and that is by informing management when they are under undue stress.
Awareness of the effects of workplace stress is vital to both employers and employees alike, if only to ensure that the business does not suffer through key workers falling into ill health. Any employers choosing to ignore this fact will find himself in contravention of the health and safety laws.