Guidelines are not the best way to tackle workplace stress

Jun 26 2003 By Peter Jackson, The Journal

It is a fact of life I have observed that, just as everybody believes themselves to have a good sense of humour, so everybody believes themselves to have stressful jobs.

So it is with some misgivings that I learn that the Health and Safety Executive has issued a set of draft guidelines for reducing stress at work.

I don't for one minute deny there is a problem with stress. We have all seen situations or been in environments where people are asked to do too much, with too little, too quickly.

The 1980s macho management culture, when increased workloads were accompanied by naked bullying, made lives a misery for many people.

And, if the surveys are to be believed, things have not got any better. Last year, according to a survey by the International Stress Management Association, no fewer than 74pc of the North-East's workforce suffered from work-related stress, making this region the worst in the country, along with London.

There is undeniably a problem, but the HSE's guidelines do worry me. It's not the guidelines themselves, which seem sensible enough - employees must have necessary competencies to carry out the job, employees are not exposed to physical violence or verbal abuse, and so on.

No, it's the benchmark that says that an organisation will have met the standard if at least 85pc of employees say they can cope and aren't excessively stressed.

Just think about that. How many companies do not have at least 16pc of the workforce who are malcontents, mischievous or simply don't like their jobs or the company, and will always vote to say they are stressed.

The problem is, there is no objective way of deciding. There have been 164,000 claims by employees for stress, but the HSE has never launched a prosecution. And you can see why.

Whereas with physical illnesses or injuries it is usually possible to say they were caused by some event or situation at work, it is a different matter to prove that an illness was caused by stress.

There is no easy answer to the problem of stress at work. The best way forward is probably to keep pointing out to employers the high costs to them from putting staff under stress, in terms of absenteeism, inefficiency, mistakes made and low morale.

As always, self-interest will be the best regulator.