Workplace-related stress in UK - Essay Example

?Workplace-related stress in UK: Introduction: Complaints concerning workplace health issues have been reported to rise by a staggering number over the course of past many years around the globe. Workplace health issues should never be overlooked as they never fail to curb the pulsating system of an organization and they can even the put the futures of large conglomerates at stake. No part of the world can be accepted as exempted from the harmful influences produced by health issues which more often than not target workplaces like a swarm of angry bees. What aggravates the already worsened situation is the fact that bosses and managers in charge are not very often found to be appropriately concerned when different workplace health and safety issues are reported by employees. Workplace-related stress is one such issue which badly deteriorates the core system of an organization and seriously interferes with the productivity rate too because element of stress in a workplace suggests presence of unproductive workforce due to which productivity plummets down instead of soaring. Stress at workplace originating from insecurity, excessive workload, and sense of captivity can be the most destructive force unleashed on a company. However, many workplace health and safety advice services are available and also exercised by many employers for the benefit of the organization and increasing productivity. Some of such orthodox strategies fail especially when they fail to address the underlying causes and consequences of workplace-related stress, while others more multidimensional approaches reportedly have been shown to bring some change within a workplace setup. Such conventional and contemporary approaches to bring down the soaring level of stress at a workplace will be discussed in this paper with the help of valid research reports. This paper is actually an effort to discuss the workplace related stress with special reference to United Kingdom (UK), the broad range of factors leading the workforce in UK towards stress will be assessed, what consequences are faced as a result of soaring stress by employers and employees, how such stress inducing factors can be addressed and culminated, exactly what type of laws, policies, or guidance services are available in UK for the bosses in charge to tackle workplace-related stress, and to what extent such initiatives have remained effective in reducing stress. Actually, there does not exist any discrete law in UK made to directly deal with work-related stress but a number of other laws and regulations can be applied to deal with the causes and consequences of stress (UK National Work Stress Network, 2011). In order to achieve the milestone of workplace environment which would be fraught with peace, harmony, collaboration, communication, and mutual respect despite cultural diversity, employers and employees need to sit down and figure out the problems faced by them without hesitation. A large part of the stress is always seen originating from a lack of communication when employees hesitate from communicating with domineering and authoritative natured bosses who seem to be more intent on sabotaging their employees’ careers than thinking of ways to turn them into productive employees. An employer more engrossed in his/her own issues and intent on oppressing everyone around proves to be an extremely potential source of threat for an organization and workforce. Such ignorant employers who appear to be least concerned with approaches and tools which could be used for modifying the unproductive employees by working on their stressed minds and enhancing the workplace environment, damage the reputation of their companies and firms in the market themselves. Nature, causes, and consequences of work-related stress in UK: Feeling stressed at work is not limited to certain occupations or levels in UK, rather everyone from the lowest level to those working at the top quality control and managing level are seen stressed out due to multiple reasons. Stress basically results from pressure and pressure involves everyone working at every level. It is an undeniable reality that present age is an age of excessive and ferocious competitiveness and all companies relentlessly struggle to surpass each other in order to be recognized as the most successful one in the global market. Such relentless and continuous struggle obviously requires everyone within an organization to put in the best efforts possible so that targets could be achieved rapidly. In words of Health and Safety Executive UK, stress is “the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demand placed on them” (UK National Work Stress Network, 2011). Pressure may come from excessive workload experienced by workers so that their work-life balance starts deteriorating and they start losing their individual sense of independence. When independence is lost and replaced by a constant and tiring oppression which is capped by never ending domestic conflicts due to copious amounts of hours spent at workplace, the looming prospect of stress starts haunting the workers literally every singly moment. Another major cause of stress at workplace is reported to be bullying or harassment faced by many employees due to cultural, racial, ethnic or any other underlying reason. Many workers trapped helplessly in excessively stressful workplace environments are found subjected to bullying by their own superiors or bosses too and they are also frequently asked to do heinous favors for their superiors as well. Employees denying doing such criminal favors are threatened of layoffs, unemployment, and financial difficulties. The UK National Work-Stress Network is one admirable committee which has taken upon itself to reduce work-related stress by acknowledging its causes and associated illnesses. As there does not exist any definite law as yet in UK which directly addresses work stress, so this Network also calls for “legislation and enforcement procedures to outlaw all forms of workplace stress, bullying and victimisation; also to ensure full corporate liability for workplace injury” (Draper, 2007). It also calls for increasing the number of happy, satisfied, and secure employees who would know how to deal with negativity at workplace and foster productivity rate. Strengthening the cooperative and collaborative spirit among employees, encouraging them to maintain a balance in life and work, allowing them to own their lives, and refraining from oppressing them in multiples ways are some features by which the managers in charge can commit themselves to winning over employees’ trust so that stress could be curbed and success could be ensured (Crain Communications Inc., 2012). The effects of stress include both physical and psychological effects. Physical symptoms of stress include that of ill health, muscle tension, panic attacks, high or low blood pressure, constant headache, and heart diseases. Psychological symptoms of stress are wider and include extreme level of irritability, anxiety, aggression, argumentativeness, loss of track of time, bad performance, inability to relate with people, substance abuse issues, and suicidal thoughts. The Institute of Psychiatry has revealed in a 2007 study that other than physical effects like back pain, headaches, and muscle spasms, “people with high-stress jobs have twice the risk of developing serious depression or anxiety compared with others in less stressful occupations” (Melchior et al., cited in cipd.co.uk, n.d.). When stress becomes skyrocketing at job places, workers naturally stop feeling interested in whatsoever falls in their duty circles and start seeking other ways of escape like increased idling, clubbing, sleeping, abusing drugs or alcohol, and even idealizing suicide when things absolutely escalate out of control. Absenteeism level is also propelled by stress at workplace. According to a research by CIPD which got published in 2008 Absence Management survey report, “stress is the number one cause of long-term absence for non-manual employees and the fourth biggest cause for manual workers” (cipd.co.uk, n.d.). Though pressure is the key to keep the workers working and motivated towards fulfilling their duties, but excessive pressure turns out to produce results exact opposite of what are produced by normal amount of pressure. If normal pressure is exerted on workers, they feel encouraged to take part in even those assignments which do not necessarily fall in their job circles. Happy and stress free employees with positive minds are potentially capable of positively influencing the rate of “customer satisfaction, loyalty, supply costs, turnover, sick days, project completion, quality and more” (Norris, 2011). In contrast, workers feel totally strung out and uninterested due to a bizarrely monotonous routine. How can such workers be expected to suffer excessive workload for unlimited time period so that some targets set by self-obsessed and authoritative bosses could be achieved at cost of workforce’s independence? Stress is always a response to pressure which may come from multiple sources like bullying or harassment at workplace, cultural diversity based conflicts, cold war between bosses and employees due to minimal communication, and domineering employers. According to a 1995 survey undertaken by HSE in UK, “over half a million people believed they were suffering from stress, anxiety, depression, or some physical illness resulting from stress, caused or made worse by their work” (UK National Work Stress Network, 2011). According to a more recent work-related illness survey done by HSE in 2005, the impact produced by ill management of stress at workplace and workforce is phenomenal and “12,820,000 days were lost to stress, anxiety and depression in 2004–05, with an estimated cost to the UK economy of ?3.7 billion a year” (cipd.co.uk, n.d.). “Bullying at work presents serious issues for mental and physical well being of a worker and so this should be essentially recognized as one of the most potential workplace hazards culminating in stress of severe nature. Bullying may include either harassing workers by dominating them needlessly all the time or asking them for sexual favours in return for pay rise and job security or promotion. According to research done in UK about work stress, “20% of the workforce feels intolerable levels of stress, also that some 35% of stressed workers are in this state because of bullying management styles” (Draper, 2007). This shows that bullying at workplace makes up a significant portion of the stress experienced by workforce in UK. Workers being bullied at workplaces to work more and produce more in spite f the grave reality that they are very often not even made a part of the many changes and issues happening in the workplace raises huge concern and demands immediate attention. When rights of employees are repeatedly eroded by coercive management styles in a kind of business culture where less workforce is preferred and workers are over worked so that costs could be reduced and productivity could be increased, stress foments in a very swift fashion. Coercive management practice mirrors bullying and excessive target-setting naturally unleashes great horror of stress on the poor workforce which often has no option but to impossibly cope with the mounting pressure due to fear of getting fired. “Excessive target-setting, bureaucracy and performance measurement now pervade many aspects of work, applying additional pressures to workers at every level” (Draper, 2007). Often less number of workers are forced by their employers to produce the same level of result as produced by a larger workforce which outbalances life and work and puts workers in an irritable mood which also plays a big role in causing domestic fights. Stress fills the mind of a worker with negativity and “one person's constant negativity infects the entire team and production drop. Unlike a cold, negativity doesn't disappear with time” (Norris, 2011). Stress is the reaction produced by subjecting the workers to excessive workload and pressures which becomes a major obstacle in the path of progress of an organization and well being of a worker. No company can progress until the employers fully acknowledge the individual independence which each worker is entitled to. Crain’s magazine suggests that creating a kind of culture where people feel part of the organization itself rather than merely remaining involved in their individual jobs makes a company preferable over another to work for (Crain Communications Inc., 2012). Increased sickness absence also originates from stress at workplace because stressed workers more often than not like to remain absent and spend their time in depression or idling. Productivity depends on healthy moods of employees and stress produces all such issues which interfere with productivity, one example of which is work absenteeism. Personal life of such stressed out and fatigues workers, as already mentioned, also deteriorates rapidly and though the employers cannot be held directly responsible for messing up workers’ lives, it is easy to see that stress forms the underlying cause in majority of domestic fights. It is impossible separate issues happening at workplace from the family needs at home. A stressed worker understandably fails to live up to the expectations both at work and home. It is always best to target such stressed workers, encourage them for counseling, and arranging weekly or monthly meetings at workplace or somewhere else so that monotonous routine could be avoided at all cost and interests of workers could be amassed. Laws, policies, and guidance by UK government for stressed workers: As for contemplating the relationship between law and work-related stress, it is mentioned briefly already in the paper that no law directly addresses stress but this does not mean that no routes are available in UK for poor workers. There are many legal routes that one can choose from in UK in reaction to experiencing high level of stress at hands of domineering bosses. There might be no direct law, but there are laws which can be applied to the causes which lead a worker towards stress. These causes include sexual harassment or discrimination, excessive workload, no days which could be taken off by a worker, or disturbed work-life balance etc. It is mentioned by UK National Work Stress Network (2011) that whenever a person is employed in a decent organization anywhere in UK, a contract is always signed between employer and employees. Such an action puts some contractual obligations on employers which make them liable to fulfill their duties towards employees. Such contractual obligations require employers to take care of their employees in such a way that they do not feel stressed out and leave workplace everyday far happier than when they arrive there in the morning. Also, maintaining dignity at work and making efforts for promoting wellbeing of employees also form part of contractual obligations. Another commendable thing is that more emphasis than ever before is now placed on maintaining work-life balance in UK so that ruthless employers determined on running “rough-shod over employees and care little for their well-being are open to challenge” (UK National Work Stress Network, 2011). Family-friendly work policies are now encouraged and preferred over old school working policies and employers everywhere, irrespective of nature of occupation, are encouraged to take interest in the lives of their employees and take actions to prevent work from sabotaging their family lives. There is a legal act called Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 which addresses one of the major causes leading to stress that is harassment. This Act makes harassment of any kind illegal at workplace and identifies that those employers who are found guilty of harassing any worker due to any reason should be accused and held for trial in the courts. This openly makes international harassment a sever act of crime that is punishable by law whenever someone superior at workplace tries dominating those working at an inferior level by way of degrading speech, insulting writing, and disorderly or incongruous behavior which might leave the person at the other end feeling insulted, insecure, and distressed. Then, many workers are discriminated against each other even in the present age due to multiple reasons like cultural diversity, gender difference, race, or color. For such issues, Discrimination Law should always be remembered by workers who can readily take action against the oppressor bosses with the help of this law which “provides protection from discrimination with recourse to Employment Tribunals. Such law now covers Disability, Ethnicity and Race, Religion, Sex, Sexuality and in due course, will include Age” (UK National Work Stress Network, 2011). Similar is the case with Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and Race Relations Act 1976, both of which strive to preserve and promote rights of employees on grounds of equal treatment and zero discrimination. Racial behaviour is typical of British society according to some literature articles and both sexual and racial behaviour can mess with an employee’s security and peace of mind in the most gruelling way possible. When the sexual or racial behaviour is even not so apparent but kept subtle yet degrading and leading to stressful conditions, such Discrimination Acts can hold an employer found guilty of this crime solidly responsible for threatening or violating peace of an employee no matter the harassment may be that significant at that stage or not. The impact of stress brought on by pressures within a worker’s personal life can never be ignored and for this reason, Disability Discrimination Act is another legislation worth mentioning which protects rights of disable workers against unlawful discrimination. Discrimination due to any disability seen in a worker is a highly deplorable issue and raises problems of even more sever nature since disabled workers are naturally much more sensitive than others and hold people’s comments made about themselves very close to heart. This particular Act makes it unlawful for anyone to discriminate against disabled people in workplaces. Even then if employers or any fellow employee violated this law, then compensation claims can be taken to the Employment Tribunals whereby the culprits can be called for hearings. Reasonable adjustments to work should also be made by employers once the employee has disclosed his/her disability at the time of interviewing him/her. Moreover, if any employer fails to protect his/her workers from an forthcoming emergency or injury, that employer can be questioned for breaching “duty of care” via either civil or criminal law which shows how much taking care of workers is stressed in UK presently. It is true that stress can be prevented from sabotaging an organization to a great extent if dignity is solidly maintained at work and for this purpose, new laws like Dignity at Work Bill should be passed by the UK government for the safety of employees. Presently, no fixed date is known for the enactment of such a law, but attempts have been regularly made for last few decades to create such laws which would ensure workers’ peace of minds. Such laws can ensure that all employees and also managers would be treated with dignity, respect, and maturity by the bosses in charge at workplaces. Also, another strategy which could greatly limit the level of stress is the effort made to define the working time and set maximum limits so that no employee could be made to stay or work long hours very often. Reasonable time off should always be graciously allowed to the workers so that they get the chance to interact with family and friends with ease and not in a fearful state. Section 2 of the Health, Safety and Welfare at Work etc. Act 1974 requires all employers to ensure the health, safety, and progress of workers so that minimal disputes could arise on grounds of no allowances made by employers for medical treatment of employees and no chances given to employees so that they could report incidences of bullying or harassment to their employers. Public Order Act 1986 is also worth mentioning here as it gives a very solid yet concise definition of racial hatred which leads towards discriminatory attitudes and stressful working environment. Racial hatred according to this Act is “that hatred against a group of persons in Great Britain defined by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins” (UK National Work Stress Network, 2011). Bullying by racist words and gestures has reportedly been shown to play a big role in fomenting stress in a workplace and employers should go to all lengths to despise such bad behaviour at workplace. Now bullying need not be essentially face-to-face, rather it may also be apparent in “written communications, e-mail, phone, and automatic supervision methods such as computer recording of downtime from work or the number of calls handled if these are not applied to all workers” (Draper, 2007). Disputes Resolution Regulations is a new regulation introduced in 2004 which “provides for a statutory procedure to enable all workers to pursue grievances and local disputes” and makes employers everywhere obliged to ensure that “specific steps are taken and where they are not, then action in the Employment Tribunal may follow” (UK National Work Stress Network, 2011). This Resolution can greatly help employees or workers whenever they are dismissed wrongfully like any cases taken for unfair or wrongful dismissal can be reported to the local Employment Tribunals by the workers who suffer from such treatment. Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 also serves the same purpose as Disputes Resolution Regulations 2004 and provides protection to employees if they feel that they are dismissed unfairly or wrongfully and when no proper justification is given to them so that they could be saved from resulting stress. This Act is particularly applied when workplace harassment or bullying management styles have forced a worker to quit the workplace and in that case, he/she may complain about unfair dismissal to the Employment Tribunal. To what extent efforts made by UK government have remained effective? The British government’s initiatives in the form of laws, policies, and guidelines to reduce the work-related ill health including stress have remained both successful and unsuccessful. Despite the laws and regulations, survey done by HSE reports that work-related stress has prevailed in UK and still increasing steadily which shows that initiatives taken by government have not remained powerful enough to deal with work stress to a great stress (cipd.co.uk, n.d.). Presenteeism, an opposite of absenteeism, relates to people coming at work but not performing well and brooding all the time. The rate of presenteeism has also mounted as a result of stress in the recent years and according to the 2007 research by Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health about the hazards associated with mental health problems, stress at work is found to be “associated with annual costs to employers of more than ?600 per employee per year” (cipd.co.uk, n.d.). This means that if average presenteeism cost per employee appears to be ?600 as claimed by Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, then for an organization which has 500 employees working together the presenteeism cost due to mental ill health would mount to some ?300,000! Stress also induces the workers to develop ideas to leave organizations which produce economical and financial disturbances both for employers and employees. According to an Absence Management research survey done by CIPD in 2008 which included questioning a lot of respondents, only about 11% reported a decline in stress-related absence with the remaining 30% respondents reporting a high rise in absenteeism due to stress. This 2008 CIPD survey has gained even more ground due to HSE research which highlights information of very grueling nature about the state of work-related stress in UK. According to HSE survey, stress experienced by workers at workplace due to excessive workload or pressures of other nature has risen from “820 per 100,000 people employed in the previous 12 months in 1974 to 1,300 per 100,000 people employed in the previous 12 months in 2005” (cipd.co.uk, n.d.). According to Cox, Griffiths, and Houdmont (2006), the nature of work-related stress in UK is very complex and no definite milestone has as yet been achieved for reducing this growing issue on a more permanent basis. HSE and CIPD surveys provide an important benchmark for estimating the exact extent to which any laws, regulations, or policies set by government and law making authorities have remained effective in fighting the work-related stress or not. Despite the strategically made policies, HSE survey data indicates a robust rise in stress at workplaces in UK. Official data for work-related stress is also derived majorly by UK government from Self-Reported Work-Related Illness (SWI) surveys and according to one such 2004/05 SWI survey, headline results indicate that “an estimated 12,820,000 days were lost to stress, anxiety and depression in 2004/5 and an estimated 509,000 of those who have ever worked were suffering from stress, anxiety or depression” (Cox, Griffiths, and Houdmont, 2006). Similarly, despite the targets set by UK government to reduce work-related stress which include meeting objectives such as 20% reduction in ill-health incidence and a 30% reduction in the number of working days lost to absenteeism, the number of working days lost to stress has also increased from 29 as reported in 2001/02 to 30.9 in 2004/05 (Cox, Griffiths, and Houdmont, 2006). The British government requires all skateholders to work in collaboration for effective and long-term elimination of stress seen at workplaces because this issue produces a lot of complications for the government and also tons of pounds are lost every year due to it. Still, UK should not be condemned in respect that it has a yet no clear law which could be directly applied for the benefit of employees suffering from work stress because UK is not alone in not having a legislation in place that would directly control work stress or consequences produced by it which damage the psychological environment of a workplace. No country in European Union also has any specific legislation as yet for work-related stress though efforts to do so are in function for quite many years. Todd (2004) admires the efforts made by UK in combating stress and claims in research report about what countries around the globe are doing about work-related stress that countries like UK, New Zealand, and Australia actively endorse work-life balance as an explicit policy goal and for which almost each year, new objectives are outlined by the official authorities. All these three countries have launched so many promotional campaigns and websites for raising awareness among people about maintaining work-life balance and ways to comply with employers so that stress free working atmosphere could be ensured everywhere. “The U.K. legislation to give parents the right to request flexible working arrangements is notable in this regard” (Todd, 2004). According to research report by ACAS (2004), training sessions should be run in a variety of workplaces all over UK for addressing work-related stress and training employers and employees together so that they could collaborate with each other and root problems should be identified. Levels of sick absence often rise rapidly when employees in trouble feel thy have no opportunity to talk to their managers about what troubles them at work due to communication gap. This is aggravated by a failure to relate with people owing to bad discipline, bullying, harassment, or excessive criticism. When workers Conclusion: Summing up, this much remains clear from the above discussion that some conventional approaches have limited success and often fail to resolve workplace conflicts because they often do not focus on the underlying factors of workplace stress. In contrast, positive minded employers with a broad vision focus on grooming mental health of a worker so that he/she could produce to the best possible level by maintaining a positive culture, one in which tough workplace issues are acknowledged fully and kept from stripping satisfaction from workforce. It helps the workers acknowledge that changes are for the betterment and should not be looked down upon. Many times, workers repress changes because they are not taken in confidence by the authoritative bosses and not notified about the latest updates which is why they start feeling jilted, left out and so not included in the whole process which makes them unproductive, unmotivated, and uninterested. Quite a number of solutions have been proposed over the last many years by HR professionals and business experts to address the commonest workplace dilemma like stress and myriad issues it gives birth to over time like unproductivity, unhealthy criticism, communication gap, confusions, and conflicts in an appropriate manner. Deplorably, most of the strategies proposed aim to assess these intricate issues with a very conventional approach with the result that more problematic hurdles are faced by workforce than ever before by way of markedly reduced production and revenue. Bored employees always form a threat for an organization’s reputation and well being. But saying stress proves to be especially toxic for the employees alone is empty mockery because it is always equally harmful and infuriating for the employers too though self-obsessed employers may seem to appear oblivious to the stressful conditions at times. Increased production and stability in market is directly related to creative and productive mood of the workforce and stress free mood in turn depends tremendously on positive workplace environment. Amidst much havoc created by seemingly impossible workplace dilemma of stress, there also exist guidance policies designed by official authorities in UK which can actually combat ferociously if implemented in a proper and well-structured manner. Such policies in UK aim at resuscitating and maintaining the relationship between mental health of the workforce and company’s success in the market. They also help to eliminate myriad crippling emotional effects produced by negative criticism, domineering attitude of bosses, absenteeism, and prejudices, all of which stem from stress. Issues like workplace environment, work-life balance, employers’ attitudes, and healthy mental state of the workforce should always be essentially addressed whenever workplace-related stress is to be analyzed in any area. It is because almost all the problematic issues creating much pandemonium and incongruity in an organization originate from these issues which collectively serve as the bedrock of workplace-related stress. References: Cipd.co.uk. (n.d.). “Building the business case for managing stress in the workplace.” Retrieved from http://www.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/F5B27EA2-1A75-4C26-9140-1C9242F7A9C6/0/4654StressmanagementWEB.pdf Crain Communications Inc. (2012). Best Places to Work 2011. Retrieved from http://www.crainsnewyork.com/gallery/20111204/FEATURES/113009999/1 Draper, I. (2007). WORK STRESS. Retrieved from http://www.atl.org.uk/Images/Work%20stress%20information%20pack.pdf Cox, T., Griffiths, A., and Houdmont, J. (2006). Defining a case of work-related stress. Retrieved from http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr449.pdf Norris, B. (2011). How to Create and Sustain a Positive Workplace—A Leader's Guide. Retrieved from http://www.briannorris.com/speaking/moraletraining.html Todd, S. (2004). Improving Work-Life Balance – What Are Other Countries Doing? Retrieved from http://www.peoplefirstsolutions.com/resources/reports/improving-work-life-balance.pdf UK National Work Stress Network. (2011). The Law & Work-Related Stress. Retrieved from http://www.workstress.net/law.htm UK National Work Stress Network. (2011). What is work-related Stress? Retrieved from http://www.workstress.net/whatis.htm Read More