Why are we getting so stressed?

Sophie Goodchild, Health and Social Affairs Correspondent
18 Nov 2009

Toxic bosses. Eighty-hour weeks. Colleagues collapsing at their desks. Anecdotes about workplace stress abound in these recession-led times.

My personal favourites include the irate manager who hurled a ringing mobile across the room.

Or the supervisor who bound me to a chair with Sellotape (I'd dared challenge his authority). And the acquaintance who pumped himself full of amphetamines to survive an all-night business deal.

Pressure is part of the job description if you work in London. The tougher the challenge, the greater the kudos. But the capital is on the verge of a stress “meltdown”.

According to new figures from the Health and Safety Executive intolerable office hours and excessive work demands triggered around 96,800 cases of anxiety or depression-related illness last year in London.

Stress is fast replacing backache as the number one cause of sick leave. The HSE reveals that more than 1.6 million working days are lost every year as a result of illness. This is not just physical but also mental illness.

And at least 16.7 per cent of workers — 617,520 — complain that their job is “extremely stressful”. The cost of all this absenteeism to the economy? An eye-watering £4 billion a year nationally.

Bosses are now being ordered to get “touchy feely” to curb this epidemic of work-induced anxiety.

This month, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) suggested annual “wellbeing” audits of staff. Executives should also praise their staff more often, says Nice, to increase performance and reduce absences.

A “praise and reward” approach could also cut the bill for litigation. Leading law firms have revealed that instructions from clients with stress-related compensation claims are on the rise.

David Marshall, from Anthony Gold solicitors, has half a dozen cases on his books. The majority are at the extreme end of the scale — those who have suffered breakdowns and are unable to work again.

Payouts can be high if you are a high-earner. One City executive Marshall acted for recently secured a seven-figure payout.

But before others rush to file a claim, Gold offers a word of caution: cases are hard to win and can drag on for years.

The claimant can actually end up more anxious than when they started. Instead, managers should confront problems early, he says, to reduce absenteeism and costly litigation.

“Twenty years ago, work-related stress wasn't recognised. Now, partly thanks to psychiatrists, it is,” says Marshall.

“Judges are cautious about opening the floodgates but are getting more with the times. It's much less defensible for a boss to say this behaviour is part of office culture'.”

Stress itself is not a medical condition. Rather, it is an adverse — and natural — reaction to excessive pressure, according to the HSE.

Pressure can be “positive” and motivating. Too few demands and we end up getting bored and feel undervalued. But excessive and prolonged stress can lead to mental and physical illness.

Teachers, nurses, call-centre staff, police officers and City managers complain the most about the negative effects of stress.

A total of 12.5 per cent of working days are lost in the Met because of psychological stress.

The Met employs 15 welfare counsellors and days lost to stress have reduced by more than 16 per cent in the past five years.

Managers and officers are trained to identify the early signs of anxiety and depression. Counselling provision is available 24/7 for crisis intervention.

In these recession-led times, the temptation is to take a hard-line approach.

But experts warn that targeting the vulnerable is counter-productive in the long-term. Steve Bevan, managing director of the Work Foundation, says a culture of denial among bosses is fuelling the rise in stress-related sick days.

“We asked an investment banker if he offered paternity leave for staff and did he monitor the men who took it? He said: Yes we do — and monitoring helps us identify the losers.' It's the same with stress. Companies want to be seen as forward-thinking and many will offer stress management. But the reality is that people are afraid to seek help. Employers should be focusing on presenteeism' — what people actually achieve at work. This way they would reduce the drain on the London economy.”

Therapists agree. The Capio Nightingale Hospital near Harley Street specialises in cases of work burn-out. Director Dr William Shanahan says self-medication is rife.

In the public sector, wine and cigarettes are the drug of choice. Among City high-fliers, it's cocaine. Employers exploit the temporary drive the drug gives you, he says, with disastrous consequences.

“You get City types who are up all night on cocaine. It makes them faster on the trading floor,” he says.

“But eventually the results are catastrophic because people just burn out. Their body says you can't get away with this' and just shuts down. In this climate, employers react by giving people more work to do. But if you put thousands into training then you should want people to be fit to deliver for you. It's not good enough sending them home for a fortnight to watch Jeremy Kyle. It means proper investment in treatment.”

One over-stressed client found himself unable to leave his plane seat. “People literally become paralysed,” says Shanahan.

The drive to succeed, explains Shanahan, draws people to the capital but can be their undoing. “I often counsel people to go back to their old job where they were happier,” he says.

There has been a shift in attitude among some employers. At least 13, including Royal Mail and Astra Zeneca, operate staff wellbeing schemes.

These Employment Assistance Programmes (EAPs) offer counselling and resilience training. Occupational psychologist and EAP manager Andrew Kinder says stress has replaced trips and falls as a workplace hazard.

“Stress audits are a wake-up call for managers to take action. I see three types of cases: anxiety disorder, that results in panic attacks, workers who are very angry about their treatment, and people who feel suicidal. London can be quite a lonely place.

“If you feel your relationships are breaking down and there is pressure at work then you can reach the tipping point.

The key is to learn to build up your resilience to pressure with a workshop.”

It has to be better than resorting to mobile phone hurling or Sellotape.

www.eapa.org.uk