Employees suffering health problems in silence

Parental, peer and in due course workplace "approval" is the intangible glue that holds families, groups, communities even societies together as the common shared or even generic social / class and/or faith based behavioural framework has been eroded in the name of equality and equity.

The Van Heyak more self-centred "Freedom Model" introduced from the US by Thatcher and adopted big time by Blair as a generic compliance tick-boxing measuring of just about everything that maybe measured has resulted in loss of meaning and purpose let alone integrity as the ticking of boxes has become more important than the "impact" so long as the paper 'outcomes' are achieved.

In schools compliance with DotGov targets and meeting the projected stats and league tables has become the overarching purpose of training pupils to pass dumb down range of exams from foundation level of GCSE's to standard level.

However, for the 1 in 5 that form the outcome risk factor or results glass ceiling for schools, who coincidently will be just "functionally illiterate" not stupid, achieving prescribed percentage of 'A' to 'C' Grade target have represented a management problem often sort of resolved by loosing the problem kids.

Of the twenty percent odd who will not be achieving a minimum of five A to C grades, depending on perconality type, around half will keep their heads down and criuse thro school life whilst the more precoscious will fight the system and regardless of intellect will know that they are not going to make it falling fowl of poor relationship management and becoming victims of behavioural aparthied.

The approval deprivation and performance anxiety simply ends up in reinforcing the them and us culture leading to either battles with the local authorities over attendance and/or the cover all comment if found out sort of loosing the Kid while remaining on-register from year nine to eleven and only then classified as a NEET post 16 - ooop's but preserves or manages risk to league tables!

Your gonna wish you hadn't asked Chris but "standing out" is not an option for Kids or anyone else unless they can withstand the peer and social pressure to conform to whichever group they sort of belong to either side of main stream middle of the road average.

Even the majority of NEET's, 78% of whom take an alternative offending route to graduation into adulthood from fifteen to twenty five, self-modify their offending behaviours by their mid twenties when 80% drop off the police statistics for youth offending. (Audit Commission Youth Offending)

This still leaves us with officially 7 million "functionally illiterate" out there along with another 2.5 million in work with digital literacy difficulties and upto 58% of roughly 5.5 million DSE operators also reporting Screen Fatigue. (HSE RR561)

"Acces to text" especially digital has become the new challenge for education and the workplace regardless of meaningful or otherwise targets for sudo qualifications only those with a reading rate above 180 words per minute achieve academic success allowing always for the exception that proves the rule notably the Bransons and Sugars of this world who found approval deprivation a spur to entropreneurial success.

Sooo, yes we should be fostering the difficult to manage, the diverse and devient or innovative and precoscious potentially functionally illiterate entropreneurial even offending personalities who just end up as collateral damage in the UK's pool of human resources.

Nigel... is it the schools that are to blame then?

Should we be encouraging pupils to stand out rather than letting peer pressure take over...

Let's not forget that peer pressure is as much an encouragement to succeed as it is an encouragement to under achievement!

Apples and stressors not a lot different in that they are both virtically affected by gravity and in reality tis the management who are NOT reporting their work related fatigue and/or fear based performance anxiety that is impairing their ability to sustain positive pro-social relationships within their team.

The insidious nature of unintended anti-social behaviour that could be charactorised simply as "approval deprivation" or 'Friendly Fire' has a dibilitating affect on relationships, performance and productivity and, over time, will present or manifest as collateral damage to occupational health of all.

As a top-down affect it is very difficult to address from the bottom-up just as the concept of empowering fell on stony ground the intangible ethos of fostering well-being to release the potential performance of individuals is scary to too many up-the-food-chain and not to be encouraged in preferrence to maintaining a fear based culture of compliance as a norm to perpetuate the hierarchy.

Fear of standing out from the crowd starts in school where no one wants to be either SEN or a Boffin as just too risky in terms of being a target for peers.........

Is this a case for management awareness? Should sttress management be included in management ongoing training schemes in the same way as performance is?

Should we even go as far as legislating that firms over a particular size should have psychological experts on the payroll and restrict their records as stringently as the medical profession are required to do?

Personally I am not in a position to make a judgement... but I feel deeply for those that have been through such a process.

Chicken & egg quandry as, of course, if stressors remain unreported until fatigue and adaptive exhaustion kicks-in presenting in illness as a last resort of the bodies attempts to foster even insist on "escape" from the stressors the indidividual will be found contributory neglegent should it come to litigation.

Life and particularly work/life is a negotiation and in order to survive beyond the immediate foreseeable future the individuyal has a "duty of care" for themselves and not just others in terms of responsibility to reduce "risks" and promote or sustain wellness or "functionality" rather than self-destructive behaviours.

Self-advocacy or ascertiveness in protecting occupation health provides and/or protects performance and productivity as well as paying financial dividends for all.........

Absolutely no point even a no brainer to end up all twitter and bisted let alone regrets when diagnosed with some dread disease or other generic psycho-physological impairment to end of life, quality of life ?????????

Kevin, I understand you resoning, but I did just that until last year and eventually ended up having a tonic clonic seizure due to stress whilst out shopping with my son.

What is important is recognising the stress and not ignoring it. If you know the cause you need to address the problem early not later. I am aware recently that aman had a seizure at Twickenham station, unfortunately for him it cost him his life as he fell on to the track convulsing and was eletrocuted.

This is of course the worse case scenario, but it highlights the need not to ignore it. For me it took 3 months to recover, but made me re-think how I work and what I am willing to tolerate.

I think personally, my life is more valuable than any company I work for. If they don't care about my welfare, why should I care about their business.

If your present work culture is such that they would make a performance issue out out it, then they clearly do not understand about people management and supporting their employees.

I fully agree with the figures that are presented above.I know that I am one of thoseb that would not share any stress related problems with my manager or in fact the HR department,due to it affecting my prospects within the company as I am sure it would be documented and brought up later at WDP's and 1-1's.