Employee Stress and Anxiety Give SME and Company Formation Owners a Headache

As we are all aware, the twenty first century work environment, is much more stressful than it was. Targets, competition, an increasingly hostile job market, compounded by the constant threat of redundancy means that today’s employee is much more stress and prone to anxiety than the previous generation.

According to research conducted by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) well over fifty percent of all employees have admitted to taking time off, due to stress. Indeed, of all the respondents asked, almost ninety five percent believed that the level of stress in their working lives has had a negative impact on their productivity at work.

Tom Watson, enterprise and business manager at the CIPD, comments: ‘The fact that work has become increasingly stressful over recent years, is relatively well documented. However, while I believe the UK’s business owners were beginning to make in-roads into dealing with the problem – with the introduction of flexible working and better occupational health policies – I think the strain the recession has put on small business has, stunted this progression. Bosses need to be aware that a stressed and anxious team hinders productivity and that failing to address this problem, could have disastrous financial consequences.”