An Industrial Society report on work-related stress in the UK shows that the current trend to increase efficiency and productivity in job designs could bring about mental health problems among workers. The report, “New Work, New Stress,” asserts that jobs that are repetitive and demanding, with little job control, such as call centers, are hard on employees’ mental health.
The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and other regulations require employers to safeguard the mental health of their employees. The Industrial Society calls on the government to guide employers as to the relationship between job design and mental health. Pat McGuinness, who authored the report, further contends that policy makers must rethink approaches to stress, taking into account the variety of risks in today’s workplaces. He asserts, “Conventional ways of identifying and approaching stress are based on those for physical risk, but the differences between physical and psychosocial hazard, harm, and risk are so great that they make a parallel approach unworkable. Employer initiatives that tackle stress in the same way as other occupational health issues will inevitably fail. This puts employers in a very difficult position when it comes to devising preventative strategies.”
The study criticizes standard practices such as employee counseling and stress management programs because they place the responsibility on the individual to control stress-related illness. Companies are urged to consider organizational changes, to train managers to notice warning signs of serious job strain before it becomes a problem and to foster a workplace environment where stress is not seen as a sign of weakness.
Based on a report from i-FM
