Workplace strain prevalent
Statistics point to employers’ need to make changes
Stress for Success

At a personal level, stress related problems are the new plague of our nonstop, hyper, 21st Century lifestyle. Ignore the negative consequences at your own peril.

At an organizational level, your bottom line is being eaten away by escalating health insurance premiums and workers compensation costs for many ailments that could be prevented by following stress management advice. For example, it’s estimated that occupational pressures are responsible for 30% of workers’ back pain. Eighty percent of workers feel stress on the job and nearly half say that they need help learning how to manage it. Forty-two percent say their coworkers need such help.

Whether or not your organization supplies you with any, part or all of your health care coverage, they should take note. Not only are most employees feeling stretched too thin, but there’s also the looming retirement of Baby Boomers, which will make it harder to fill their vacancies from the next and much smaller Generation X. More than ever, organizations need to make their work environments less stressful and more appealing to retain valued workers.

What follows is research regarding workplace stress. As you read through it, answer these two questions about your employees:
• What can you do to make your workplace less stressful?
• What can you do to give your employees more control (therefore less stress) over their day-to-day activities?

Large surveys done during the 1990s by Northwestern National Life Insurance Co., St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Co., Yale University, among others found:
• 40% of workers reported their jobs were very or extremely stressful
• 25% viewed their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives
• 26% said they were "often or very often burned out or stressed by their work"
• Job stress is more strongly associated with health complaints than financial or family problems

With the increased pressure from living lives that are spinning faster and faster, one of the obvious consequences is increased workplace anger and even violence. The 2000 survey, "Attitudes in the American Workplace VI” and the 2000 Integra Survey found:
• 42% said yelling and other verbal abuse is common
• 18% had experienced some sort of threat or verbal intimidation in the past year
• 14% said they work where equipment has been damaged due to workplace rage • 14% have felt like striking a coworker in the past year but didn't
• 10% are concerned about someone at work they fear could become violent
• 9% are aware of an assault or violent act in their workplace
• 2% admitted to actually personally striking someone
• Additionally they found that 60.2% routinely have work-related neck pain; 44% stressed-out eyes; 38% with hurting hands; 34% with difficulty in sleeping

All of this job stress adds up to a price tag for the United States of over $300 billion every year, with stress causing:
• 40% of job turnover!
• 60 to 80% of on-the-job accidents!
• Annual double-digit increases in workers compensation premiums!
• Repetitive musculoskeletal injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, the nation's leading workplace health cost accounting for almost one third of workers compensation awards

If all this doesn't convince you of the importance of helping your employees manage their stress better, I don't know what will. The week after Thanksgiving I’ll share more of the research on other negative consequences of job stress, such as increased accidents and resistance to change.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.