Stress needs to be dealt with, not brushed under carpet

Irish people suffer from less stress in the workplace than workers in any other EU country, according to a survey by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions published earlier this year.

Only 12 per cent of Irish people report feeling stressed at work, compared with an EU average of 28 per cent.

Mr Tony Briscoe, assistant director of social policy at IBEC, says stress-related illness in Ireland is "not hugely significant". An IBEC survey of 525 companies employing 80,000 people found that stress-related illnesses were confirmed in just 36 of the companies. Only 3 per cent of 2,269 personal injury claims by employees were related to stress, a far lower number than was anticipated by the employers' group.

So are Irish workplaces laid-back, well-managed, stress-free zones or is stress and stress-related illness under-reported by employees?

"One possibility is that Irish workplaces are run so well that stress is not an issue, and the other possibility is that there is an underreporting of stress, and my inclination would be that the latter is true," says Mr Andrew Mc Laughlin, a management specialist at the Irish Management Institute (IMI).

"The pressures in Irish workplaces are no different than they are anywhere else, yet there is still a stigma about saying you suffer from stress, and a fair amount of denial, despite the number of physical symptoms that are related to it such as high blood pressure."

The British Health and Safety Executive (HSE) defines stress as "people's natural reaction to excessive pressure". Its recently issued guidelines to employers warn that although stress is not an illness, it can lead to mental and physical ill health, including depression, nervous breakdown, back pain and heart disease, if it is excessive and goes on for some time.

Mr Declan Dixon, founder and managing director of Synergis, a company that gives stress management advice and training to businesses, has also noted a reluctance to address the issue of stress in the workplace and intervene before it triggers serious illness.

"It's a taboo, really. In the UK, they have a larger business community and they will tell you what they think and feel about work, but here people don't want to be the centre of some sort of gossip," he says.

"There is this attitude among some chief executives that 'if you start talking about it, you'll introduce it here'. Very often you will find that people who take that attitude have a problem with their own stress management."

Mr Dixon believes using stress management programmes in their companies is good human resources practice for employers as well as being wise for a number of economic reasons. The costs of stress, according to the HSE, show up as high staff turnover, an increase in sickness absence, reduced work performance, poor timekeeping and more customer complaints.

"More enlightened companies recognise that if you haven't got a happy workforce, they are not at their most productive. But they are also seeing quite dramatic court case payouts in the UK and thinking 'we better sort ourselves out here'," says Mr Dixon.

At a minimum, companies should have a stress-management policy in place, he adds: "It is surprising the number of large companies who don't have a stress-management policy and, frankly, it's silly. It shows the company doesn't seriously recognise stress as an issue."

Not taking stress seriously at the top end of a company can have knock-on effects on the stress levels of the rest of the workforce. Research conducted on behalf of British management training company Video Arts found that 76 per cent of workers in Britain believe their bosses' inability to deal effectively with their own stress leads them to cause more stress to the people around them.

"Managers constantly claim that their employees are their single most valuable asset, yet what they consistently fail to recognise is that their behaviour directly impacts upon the people around them - for better or worse," says Mr Eric Molyneux from Video Arts.

"When a manager creates a stressful environment around himself or herself, other employees are inclined to feel under pressure," agrees Mr McLaughlin at the IMI. "The boss is crucial to the workplace environment and a manager must model a calm approach to work."

Instead of acting "like a shield, protecting their workers", some managers act "like lightning conductors, passing on negative anxieties to other workers", according to another senior management consultant in human resources.

Stressed-out bosses may bottle up their own concerns, whilst verbally attacking their staff. Of respondents to the Video Arts survey, 71 per cent said they found being criticised in front of colleagues extremely stressful.

"We all know that, even in social situations like down the pub, an atmosphere can develop that can rub off on others," explains Mr Dixon. "In the workplace environment that can have disastrous effects, and sometimes there is this proverbial whipping down the line."

Another problem is that managers often set examples for the rest of the workforce. So, although working long hours may not be particularly stressful for them, other employees without the same degree of job security may feel under pressure to imitate their bosses' work patterns in order to "prove" themselves.

"If people are highly motivated, love their jobs and are in a position of control, they would tend to feel less stressed by long hours than those who are lower down in the organisation and have less control over their jobs. But even then, I would say to them that long hours can be counter-productive," Mr McLaughlin says.

Trapped in a competitive working environment, employees may ignore symptoms of work-related stress or believe that saying they are suffering from stress will damage their chances of promotion. One-third of Irish people admit to "bottling things up" when faced with stress, according to a survey on behalf of the Mental Health Association of Ireland (MHAI) published last week.

"I think employers need to encourage employees to feel free to ventilate on the subject of stress without it being judged as a sign of weakness," says Mr Brian Howard, MHAI chief executive. The association is now putting proposals before its board to broaden its stress management programme.

Although employees should be realistic about the changes employers can make to the content of their jobs, work-related stress is not an individual weakness but a symptom of an organisational problem, according to HSE guidelines. Listening to pan-pipes or burning aromatherapy candles to relax is purely optional. Tackling work-related stress requires a partnership between workers, managers and employers - "a partnership based on honesty and trust, where you all say what you feel".

"It's good to talk" may be the message on taking the first steps in dealing with work-related stress - but Irish employers and employees don't seem convinced.