Stress now top cause of long-term sickness absence
October 31st, 2011 | Published in employee stress surveys, employee surveys, long-term sickness absence
In this recent article from Personnel Today, the results of a survey on the causes of employee sickness absence are eye-opening.
33% of companies who responded said that stress was the most common cause of absence for non-manual workers.
This represents 1 in 3 employees and is something that no organisation can afford right now.
The first step in dealing with work-place stress is to understand what the stress points are for people in the organisation - every organisation is different and its staff will be subject to particular stress points. An anonymous survey can be a very useful first step in measuring how people are feeling, and where the stress points may be worst.
Training for managers in spotting signs of stress is very important too, as they have the most influence over individual employees’ day to day working conditions.Â
A personal stress indicator tool that an employee can access online to test their own levels of stress can be added as part of the stress ‘awareness’ toolkit for the organisation. It can also provides anonymised but critical data on stress levels and can allow the organisation to monitor this very important area on an ongoing basis.
Find out more about Track’s Climate Check tool to support stress management in your organistion.
