Nothing new there,

Although there is nothing mentioned about difference between stress due to home/personal circumstances as well as work related triggers... thus the picture appears to promote this squarely onto the employers shoulders?

Apologies in advance for my pedancy, but......


Stress is not an illness or an injury so I'd appreciate someone explaining how it can appear on the same page as an musculoskeletal injury? And quite how anyone has managed to untangle the work-related and non-work-related is beyond me. All propagated by IOSH and CIPD!

I give up.

PS: I totally appreciate the significance of stress as a cause of injury/ill-health, btw.

Not really a conclusion I've come to, Ray. It's just that stress isn't a health effect (unlike musculoskeletal disorder); it's a human condition that MAY lead to a health effect.

Like I said, I'm totally onboard with stress being a cause of illness/injury. Much like repetitive movements causing musculoskeletal disorders.

Dear All

It seems to me that pressure is the cause, stress is the result. The term musculoskeletal disorders covers a number of medically definable conditions. Similarly stress covers a number of conditions defined by medics. However stress as a term is commonly used in everyday language to mean different things. Hence the issue is fraught with confusion.

The HSE have a defined set of managerial standards that relate to preventing stress. Hardly surprising they are mainly aimed at organisational measures to minimise unnecessary pressure being applied to the workforce. The HSE also have on their website some examples of interventions where organisations have tried to reduce the risk of stress occurring by reorganising themselves.

Unfortunately during the current recession, many organisations have to reorganise quickly, often drastically and in a growing number of cases, go into administration. For those left, a badly managed reorganisation can add more pressure into the workload. For a well managed reorganisation the workload is distributed so as not to induce additional pressures onto the workforce. It is generally consultation, good communication, support, clear defining of workload, clear understanding of what is required etc that helps reduce pressures.

For the more traditional approach, 'if you cannot stand that heat get out of the kitchen' tends not to address underlying pressure problems and stress is often a result of such approach. Although there is an argument that by the time enough people have got out of the 'kitchen', you are left with a 'survivor population' who are those that just love being under pressure all the time. The media, for example, seem to employ a lot of these types as journalists.

Yes it is a complicated issue. I recall a session in the 1990s where the Production Director of Carlsberg described their strategy for supplying beer and lager to 102 countries throughout the world. Depending upon the political, economic, social, transport infrastructure, distribution networks and a shed load of other factors, would depend whether they built their own brewery, licensed another company's brewery, imported beer/lager, created their own distribution network or used someone else's etc etc.

The Director was asked about dealing with stress at question time. He pushed back in his chair and blew out his cheeks. 'Well, stress is very complicated.' he said. Implying that it is very difficult to deal with. Like brewing and distributing beer/lager to 102 countries is a doddle?

The prevention of stress is centred in developing an effective and efficient workplace organisation and managing it well. Quite a challenge indeed!

Cheers.

Nigel

OK, look, I admitted to being a pedant when I first got into this.

Stress-related ill-health can mean physical issues (e.g. Type II diabetes from poor diet etc., even musculoskeletal disorders from poor posture etc.) or mental issues (e.g. depression, anxiety).

Stress itself is none of these things. It's a human reaction to too much pressure.

The report linked above puts 'stress' in the same breath as musculoskeletal disorders (yes, this is an umbrella term or carpal tunnel etc.) which isn't right. They must mean stress-related ill-health.

In which case, I question how they identified this ill-health as being work-related. If it's based solely on the absentee's view then I feel this information could be misleading.

Actually, why am I being so mealy-mouthed? Of course it's misleading. It's PR stunt; misleading by definition.

Stress is not an illness it is a state. Stress can of course be a cause of illness though. My company are just introducing a stress management system and the first task was to run a series of Stress Presentations. I have now completed 3 of these presentations. I got the job becasue my degreee dissertation was on stress! I think that we may be talking about "Work related stress" here. Problem is, as someone has already identified is seperating "work related stress" from other forms of stress. BUT there are a number of things the Company can do to reduce the effects of stress on their workforce whilst at work. I could go on but there is lots out there to look at about this subject. Hope this helps the discussion.
Les