Unreasonable demands placed upon staff is the biggest cause of workplace
stress.
An online survey by Personneltoday.com, in collaboration with the Health and
Safety Executive, shows that 43 per cent of the 680 respondents believe
overly-demanding bosses are the top reason for stress among employees.
The response indicates that a significant number of HR professionals believe
that line managers are failing to adopt good people management practices.
Poor relationships between people at work was identified as the second
biggest cause of workplace stress (cited by 35 per cent of the respondents). A
quarter (25 per cent) believe stress is caused by individuals not having much
say in how and when they do their work, and 20 per cent believe it is caused by
staff having poorly defined or roles that are not fully understood.
Contrary to popular belief, the findings show that the amount of work and
long hours are not perceived to be the main causes of stress.
They also show that customer demands and market competition are not as
influential in terms of stress as poor management and poor internal
communications. www.hse.gov.uk
