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Stress at Work, Management and Prevention
Author: Jeremy Stranks
Price: 19.99
Pages: 232
Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
ISBN: 0750665424

According to the Health and Safety Executive, workplace stress is currently the fastest growing cause of absence from work. It is the 'bad back' of the 21st century. This comprehensive text by Jeremy Stranks should therefore find its way onto the bookshelves of risk managers, HR professionals, management lecturers, trainers and health and safety officers. School-prefect types will absorb it with vigour and perhaps paralyse their organisations with politically correct red tape, while go-getters may dismiss it as fodder for ambulance-chasing law firms. It would
be a terrible shame, however, if that's as far as it goes.

This is a hot topic, and the book ought to be read and responded to sensibly by everyone. But will it? The problem with many texts on 'worthy' matters, especially if linked with the dreaded 'c' word - compliance - is that the only people who care about such matters are already dealing with them. In other words, the author is preaching to the converted.

What's more, so many of these types of books are really dull. Not in this case.

Stranks has written a veritable bible on the topic, breaking down the key components in such a way as to make it quite compelling reading. I picked up this book to review it on a train journey, thinking that the only way I would read such a tome would be as a prisoner of our rail network - a stressful enough experience in itself. However, I found myself reading it willingly and with interest. I almost missed my stop.

It's easy to dip in and out of, well referenced and undoubtedly well researched.

Hopefully, it will sell to lots of CEOs and company directors in airport bookshops and do us all a favour. Perhaps if it came with the optional title of Really Sexy Ideas For Increasing Shareholder Value it would sell millions.

Stress at work may not be a sexy subject, but it can significantly affect shareholder value both positively and negatively. It needs to be responsibly and sensibly managed, and this book provides an excellent starting point.

Useful? Four stars
Well-written? Four stars
Practical? Five stars
Inspirational? Three stars
Value for money? Four stars
Overall Fo