Workplace stress and how to tackle it

Sarah Ward, national secretary, introduces our new Members' Guide to Workplace Stress.  

Surely, we’re in no doubt now that the modern world is a stressful place. With all its financial pressures, long working hours, the pressure of social media and always being contactable - the modern world is taking its toll. Once you add in a dose of life experience (moving house, deaths, births, relationships) the pressure can build.

We understand more about stress, and workplace stress than ever before. We know that the stress hormones relate back to the years of human evolution to the “flight or fight” scenarios of early humans. In the modern era, we’re having those same reactions at work, where the blood is pumping, the cortisol is running through your veins and we are all pepped up ready to respond. But we’re not designed to sustain that type of pressure and when it gets out of hand that’s when we can suffer from stress – in whichever way that manifests. There’s no one size fits all for this, but basically the definition of “stress” is when the demands placed upon us exceed our ability to cope.

So we need to be able to identify when we move from the sweet-spot of just the right amount of pressure (so we’re turning up, performing well at work etc) to when it’s too much and we’re moving into the danger zone. It might be a physical response, (heart rate, palpitations) or it might be increasing bad habits (drinking/eating more) or just might manifest behaviourally (shouting at colleagues/your family.) We’re all different and it plays out in different ways. The key is to understand this can happen, spot that’s it happening – and identify what you can do about it.

At BECTU, we’ve launched a new Members' Guide to Workplace Stress. We want our members to understand the issues and to support each other.

As well as the individual support that can be crucial (and BECTU can provide confidential individual support for members) there is a whole section in the guide on what makes a healthy workplace, based on the Health and Safety Executive’s Management Standards. This section helps us to understand the various factors, which if left unchecked, can lead to stress in the workplace. By better understanding the workplace environment, the hope is that BECTU reps can assess feedback from members, take this knowledge to local consultation meetings and seek the changes that benefit all members.

Just a few facts to consider while you’re thinking about all this:

• 12.5 million working days were lost in the UK in 2016/17 due to work related stress, anxiety or depression (according to the HSE)
• 1 in 6 workers in the UK suffer from stress, anxiety or depression
• Most people with a mental health issue wait over a year to tell their closest friends and family about it (Time To Change survey).

We don’t think this is good enough, and we think BECTU can do something about it. We hope you do too. If you’d like more information or you’d like to get involved please contact Sarah Ward (national secretary, BECTU Sector of Prospect).