Half of workers seeking stress support

Sample is not large enough to make these conclusions.

I completely agree - I am looking forward to it, I am glad that there is going to be an emphasis on management style and competency throughout the building. I hope a lot of our hard work will be recognised.

I will however, leave the chuffed part to yourself!!

Joanne you should be chuffed to nuts, or perhaps' not if gender sensitive, anyway, thing is risk assessment and/or stress audits should be a regular feature of more inclusive even equitable workplaces where wellbeing is recognised as a consequence of a "prosocial" culture that fosters improved sense of value, belonging and enhances performance.

No worries Sain I've been called a lot worse and dyselexic anyway what ho.

Happy days and stuff the miserable mardy one's who need a good laugh.

Nigel, forgive mybad typing - got your name totally wrong there - sorry

nogel, I wish there were a lot more of me out there too or at least people who would be willing to listen to me!

Joanne, I don't envy you at all - as you say, their visit is causing more stress but that will be shortlived hopefully. As long as you are working to the Management Standards, there should be little that should be a problem. Inevitably there will be employees who see this is an opportunity to gripe about alsorts but the HSE inspectors are usually able to weed these reponses out.
I wish you well during the audit.

The HSE are about to audit my hospital, to assess the level of stress, and management communication.

They are sending three auditors on non-specified days, going to a variety of areas, and want to speak to various members of staff to assess how well their managers are treating them and keeping them informed - all in private of course - and then they will make a judgement on levels of stress and management technique!!!

I have suggested that the audit itself is causing more stress than is necessary but ......well you can imagine the response!!

I am glad I work for a facility service provider and not the NHS!

Oh so simple stress = "believing 'they' cannot cope" or just being sort of revisited by a little PTSD left over from something that "frightened 'them' as a child"...

For sure "we", they and them, are the product of all our experiences, nature / nurture, and evolution has provided us with a usually overridding survival instinct and well intentioned "adaptive mechanism" (GAS) that seeks to enable us to cope, tolerate, persevere and adapt to physiological and emotional pressures or demands.

Well the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" brigade haven't allowed for the prey or subject being in captivity (school or work) and "feeling" that they, them, we are unable to escape when no longer coping with or unable tolerate the anxiety driven by the perceived threat and fight/flight part of the cycle and have reached adaptive exhaustion.

People don't need to be patronised by the well meaning softly spoken "and how are you today ?" chocolate teapot relationship management approach nevertheless, everyone doe's seek approval, meaning and purpose in their work where some "positive regard" and good communication supports a sense of wellbeing reducing or mitigating the negative affects of approval deprivation and performance anxiety associated with being treated like a mushroom.........

Unfortunately, there are too few Sian's out there who seek to identify, recognise and risk assess potential workplace stressors and put early interventions in place as bolting the stable door after the horses have spooked and 10% are claiming stress injury just tooooo late Ethel.

Ok, stress (the natural reaction that people have to excessive pressure or other types of demands placed upon them. It arises when they believe they cannot cope - HSE). Stress is created by the individual in response to workplace or other stressors - deal with those (using the management standards) and much of this goes away. However the key element of the standards I beleive is the communication element. There is not enough positive communication between individuals in organisations from the top to the bottom. We also believe that emotional intelligence (your emotions and beliefs) plays a huge part in people's ability to deal with situations and to modify their response to stressful or pressured situations. For example, if you have a bad experience as a child - say a dog frightened you - you will have the that memory of fear around dogs and will then behave in a similar fashion to all dogs - even if they never thrreatened you. The same applies at work - if the end of month accounts process is one that has always engendered stress in the accounts team then as it approaches each month end - the same reaction will be played out. Seeking alternative ways, through communicattion with teams/individuals of dealing with the 'month end stress process' including change of work practices such as ensuring all invoices are presented as soon as generated etc can break the cycle and lead to greater efficiency and productivity and reduced stress.
A combination of the health and safety risk assesment approach and the emotional intelligence approach can turn things around very quickly.
Pressure in the workplace is expected - stress should not be.

Doh, it's just a survey not a study or double-blind research project that sort of affirms what everyone knows in the firstplace that there is increasing unintentional, formally unrecognised and employers are in denial that there is any collateral damage to uk work/life human resources that are nevertheless increasingly suffering approval deprivation and performance anxiety as a direct result of their friendly fire.

Recession rubbish just an excuse to shift responsibility for poor relationship management and non-existant risk assessment in occupational mental health.

Hi Stuart. Quite so. Half of those questioned does not mean half the workforce. If however the sampling process was methodologically sound, then one can extrapolate the results of the sample to the general population (bearing in mind tests for validity and error) All sample based surveys are subject to these provisos but they are useful in indicating a potential problem. I get annoyed when people quote percentages of people in a focus group rather than a survey!

Of course nine out of ten cats asked by Whiskas prefered whiskas nevertheless one doesn't need the affirmation by whiskas to "believe" that some percentage of cats will prefer whiskas.

On the other hand, other than choosing to remain in denial, the symptoms of an increasingly anxious society, and not just in the workplace, is manifesting across work/life from poor relationship management, self-medicating on ant-acids and alcohol to changes in sleep and eating patterns let alone the normally pro-social even gregarious presenting as withdrawn and often more short tempered or irassible, over time, are all indicators or emotional fatigue and disorder.

Using a bigger stick to so called manage absense better has just fostered or created a higher proportion of fear based presenteeism exacerbating attempts to improve productivity whilst performance only drops off even more so unless someone gets the cart back after the horse and stops flogging the horse too boot they better expect to deal with a self-fullfilling prophesy of poor performance and higher turnover of exhausted kit with a broken spirit shuffling toward the sick bay.........

Well another dose of statistical misapplication. Half of those QUESTIONED does NOT mean half the workforce. No doubt those who did the survey and devised the report are much in need of such assistance?

Soo the stiff upper lip is, at long last, starting to quiver a little and maybe by getting over the self-denial that 'no I'm alright' is in fact totally wrong along with non-lethal 'water-boarding' as another stressor designed to ensure compliance with the wishes of da controllers fat or otherwise......

There are no excuses for ignoring or turning a blind-eye to friendlyfire and the omissions in duty of care that are resulting in increasing levels of workplace collateral damage to occupational health of Uk human r4esources.

It may be fine to accept from a risk assessment point of view that safety is a 'when' rather than 'if' proposition but as it reaches a critical mass of people experiencing emotional fatigue as a direct result of "approval deprivation" leading to 'performance anxiety' that productivity is going to go west if it hasn't already along with the companies dividends.........

Equipment, kit and/or human resources in the production line all need risk assessmsnet and some routine planned maintenance or at least crash recovery strategies in place as a matter of course if performance and productivity is going to be on target and budget if for no other reason than at least 10% of the organic unlike inorganic kit is going to make a claim !!!

Playing nice and fostering an ethos of a "Positive Regard for All" equipment will reduce unintentional breakdowns of the kit and make performance and productivity more predictable reducing the higher risks or error associated with management anxiety and feeling that they need to be in constant readiness for the next crisis that needs managing, denial and/or hidding under the carpet.