Fact: A major workplace accident will affect your organisation, your workplace and your customers. It will damage your reputation, productivity, lower morale and impact on a company’s “bottom line”.

After a workplace accident all the physical health safety and issues will be addressed but the psychological well being of the workforce will be ignored. This area of health is a forgotten or simply ignored requirement of the Health and Safety Legislation. Both the physical and psychological well being of staff needs to be addressed. Few people realise that psychological injury can be more devastating than physical injury.

What are the psychological effects on workers after a workplace accident/incident?

50% of workers will suffer a prolonged reaction, which may need professional help.
Half of this 50% will go on to develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and half will develop anxiety, depression or substance abuse.
Overall 25% to 33% will have long term coping problems.
Psychological trauma injury and PTSD involve flashbacks and nightmares about the accident.

Avoidance: workers will not wish to talk about the accident and will often avoid the place where it happened (or any place like it). If for example a worker was working from heights he might be fearful of returning, this is a “normal” reaction and he may manage his symptoms by signing off sick.

In addition affected workers will experience increased emotional arousal including anxiety, aggression and mood swings. Frequently individuals turn to alcohol or drugs to cope, which may of course increase the risk of further accidents at work.

What the company needs to do

The company will need a plan so that they can respond positively when there is a major accident.
After a major workplace incident early intervention and crisis support is required.
Managers need to understand that workplace accidents will have predictable effects on the workplace. The mistaken assumption is always that workers will be able to carry on regardless.
The company needs to provide the necessary training for managers and supervisors to respond positively to workplace accidents, i.e. How to Defuse.
Courses relating to the psychological well being of the workforce need adding to the Construction Industry safety-training programme.
Management need to place “People Issues” high on the agenda, it is no use having “systems up” if “people are down”
Conclusion

Remember that there are always two traumas, one is caused by the accident itself, and the second one is how management react to the workforce in the aftermath of a major accident. Poor and untrained responses will demoralise workers further.
The lesson for all business is that prompt action saves money by promoting recovery and effectiveness

Note

www.bsgltd.co.uk The Building Safety Group Ltd

More evidence emerges of construction's suicide risk
16 January 2004

Researchers at Leeds University find that 16% of all suicides in the city are committed by construction workers
By Tom Broughton
Research by academics at the University of Leeds has produced further evidence of the extraordinarily high suicide rate among construction workers.
The analysis of data from Leeds coroners' court reveals that out of 240 cases of suicide in Leeds between 1998 and 2001, 38 involved construction workers.
Bryan Rye, UCATT's eastern regional secretary, said that his union intended to use the statistics to urge the Department of Health to allocate more resources to deal with the problem.
He said: "I am in contact with UCATT's central office over the issue and we are hoping to take the latest figures to the Department of Health to demonstrate the extent of the problem."
Rye added that the findings in Leeds fitted into the pattern of construction suicide that seemed to be emerging across the country.
Building revealed last June that construction has a higher rate of suicide than any other professional sector and that a construction worker commits suicide every two days.
Research by the East Kent Health authority found that 16% of the 233 suicides in the region in 1998-2001 were committed by construction workers. This is the same percentage as Leeds. The Isle of Wight Health authority found that 10% of its suicides were committed by workers in the construction industry.
Leeds Metropolitan University fellow Phil Clegg said he would write a paper exploring the link between suicide and the construction sector.
Construction pensions and insurance provider B&CE revealed last year that of the 448 death benefit claims lodged with the firm for the 12 months ending 31 March 2002, 46 were recorded as suicides.
The problem of suicide in construction is not confined to the UK. In Australia, a study has shown that construction workers in the state of Queensland are taking their own lives at twice the rate of the average employee. At the country's Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union's biennial conference, delegates were told that more than 40% of all death-related claims to the building industry's pension provider referred to suicides.

www.building.co.uk

The British Medical Association has made an agreement with the Government allowing GP’s to give up signing sick notes from April 2006. No decision has been made about who should take over the job. Pilot schemes begin in April to assess whether company doctors can take the strain.
A survey by Doctor magazine found that 80% of doctors want to relinquish what they see as a burden. 77% admitted issuing sick notes too easily, and a poll by the University of Aberdeen found that doctors commonly write sick notes on demand.
The pilot schemes will use company doctors and specialist occupational health nurses as a first port of call for sick workers.
Replacing GP’s with company doctors pose problems. Medical staff is a luxury for most businesses. The question of cost is a vexed one, who should foot the bill. The question of trust is another problem, even though company medical staff are governed by strict rules of confidentiality, workers may well trust them less than their own GP.
“Staff might think of company doctors as a management tool or being too close to the human resources department” Sheila Tilley an occupational health advisor with Liverpool based Interact Health Management.
“Sick note? Don’t ask the doctor” Financial Mail on Sunday 1st February 04

Recognising the symptoms of work-related stress (ie
employees and managers can recognise other occupational
injuries and illnesses more easily than the signs of stress).
__Early intervention where a stress case is identified. Unlike
certain other occupational injuries or illnesses, there is no
general period of recovery or prognosis for work-related
stress. It is an area where the organisation’s reaction to the
situation can, in some cases, influence the prognosis and
recovery time.
__The importance of an accurate assessment of the problem, the
situation, and the individual’s needs. Again, there is likely to
be far more variety here than for some other areas of
occupational illness where symptoms follow a more uniform
pattern.
__The importance of providing a non-stressful environment on
returning to work, ie supportive, with demands that the
employee can cope with (underload may be as harmful as
overload), and allowing the employee to participate/have
control over the situation.
__Recognising that the causes of stress can change over time.
What caused the stress-related illness the first time may be
addressed, but replaced by other stressors. Therefore, the
return-to-work process probably needs more reviewing than
for other occupational illnesses.
__More flexibility. The recovery from stress-related illness is
likely to be less predictable and the certain than from other
occupational illnesses. Therefore, timescales and possible
duties may need to be more flexible, and should be reviewed
regularly.
Stress and rehabilitation awareness in line managers
Effective stress management and rehabilitation were seen to
depend heavily on managers being able to recognise problems in
their staff, and take action accordingly. The importance of
manager awareness was reiterated time and again by the case
study organisations. Both manager awareness of the signs and
symptoms of stress, and awareness of rehabilitation policies and
the range of options available to help them manage those
situations, was seen as critical. This was achieved in a number of
ways:
__mandatory training on, for example, absence procedures
__stress awareness training
__policy documents and guidance
__employee information leaflets
__manager coaching (when dealing with stress-related cases)
__establishing working groups
__standing agenda items in manager meetings.
A variety of different methods for monitoring sickness absence
were evident in the case study organisations. These practices
allowed the case study organisations to achieve the following
actions, believed to be important in minimising sick leave and
supporting effective rehabilitation:
__early intervention when a case of ‘stress’ is identified
__early intervention following a high-risk or traumatic incident
__identification of causes of stress at an organisational or
departmental level
__identification of causes of stress at an individual level
__monitoring of any particular problem areas or departments.
95
Most employers only think about how to manage the
rehabilitation and return to work of an employee following
absence due to work-related stress when it actually happens. The
employer should be proactive, not reactive, in their approach to
work-related stress. They need to think through how they would
manage the situation in advance. If you haven’t got a rough idea
of what to do if someone goes off with stress-related ill-health,
then it will be far more difficult to help them back effectively.
SMEs need to give it some prior thought, but it doesn’t need to be
too complicated.
There needs to be sufficient understanding and awareness about
stress amongst senior managers and owners of SMEs. There may
be a lack of acceptance among SMEs that employees can become
stressed (especially at the middle and lower levels). They need to
recognise that even boredom can cause stress, not just high powered
decision making. It can hit anyone, and there are lots of
things you can do about it.
The reasons for being proactive in this area need to be sold to
SMEs in the right way. At the moment, there is an impression that
stress is a negative thing, and that legislation is involved. This
makes many mangers want to avoid the whole issue. It was
suggested that if stress management were sold in a more positive
way, then people would see the benefits of addressing it. They
will see it as a business improvement opportunity, a way of
increasing people’s job satisfaction and motivation.

City high-flyer Steven Horkulak recently won £912,000 in High Court damages against money brokers Cantor Fitzgerald International over alleged bullying. He claimed that Cantor Fitzgerald's president, Lee Amaitis, screamed obscenities at him on a regular basis for six months leading up to his constructive dismissal in June 2000. David Hetherington, a partner at law firm Fladgate Fielder, explores some of the issues.



Q. A former worker who resigned is claiming he was constructively dismissed as the result of being regularly subjected to unjustified criticism, shouting and foul language from his manager. Our business is conducted in a high-pressure environment, and the manager says he was merely trying to encourage the former employee to improve his performance. Is the claim still likely to succeed?

A. Yes. The manager’s conduct amounts to bullying, leading to a fundamental breach of the implied contractual duty to maintain the trust and confidence of the employee.

As recently reported in the media, a money broker who was forced to resign from a major brokerage firm two years before his contract was due to expire in similar circumstances, was awarded nearly £1m damages by the High Court. His boss had a ‘dictatorial’ management style, and hysterically screamed obscenities and threats at him on a regular basis – sometimes in the presence of others. The judge said employers have ‘obligations in connection with the self-esteem and dignity’ of employees.

Q. An employee walked out because he felt that a colleague was behaving abusively and threateningly towards him. If we sack the worker for walking out, can he bring a claim against us? He had less than a year’s service.

A. If the bullying consisted of actual or threatened physical violence or psychological harm, the employee could argue that he walked out because his health and safety were in serious and imminent danger. In such circumstances, the dismissal would be automatically unfair, and the worker would be entitled to bring a complaint of unfair dismissal, irrespective of this length of service.

Q. A worker resigned as a result of being physically and verbally bullied by colleagues at work, which included racial abuse. He has brought complaints of race discrimination and unfair constructive dismissal. The alleged acts undertaken by the colleagues were not authorised by us, and were not connected with the performance of their duties. Are we liable? And what compensation could be awarded in respect of the alleged discrimination?

A. An employer can be held vicariously liable for bullying which amounts to racial, sexual or disability harassment carried out by staff against a colleague. The employer will not be liable if it can show that it took all reasonable practical steps to prevent the bullying. However, the employer will not be able to use that defence if it ‘turned a blind eye’ to the bullying, or failed to deal with a request from the victim for support.

Compensation awarded for unlawful discrimination would be unlimited. It could include compensation for injury to feelings and, if the worker has suffered any psychiatric and/or physical injury attributable to the bullying, compensation for personal injury as well. Aggravated damages could also be awarded if there was a continual failure to deal properly with any complaints about the bullying.

An employer’s failure to take adequate steps to protect a worker who is being bullied by a colleague can amount to a breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence in itself, and could give rise to constructive dismissal if the employee resigns because of that breach.

Q. What steps can we take to reduce the risk of any future liability arising from the bullying of staff by managers or colleagues?

A. A clear anti-bullying policy, which includes a complaints procedure, should be introduced and operated. Existing grievance procedures may not be suitable for dealing with bullying. The policy should include a clear definition of what bullying is and the forms it takes, as well as a statement that bullying will not be tolerated and will be treated as a disciplinary offence.

The complaints procedure should allow bullying to be dealt with through informal and formal processes, as appropriate. The victim should be permitted to bypass their line manager or supervisor where the bullying involves them. The formal procedure should set out principles governing such matters as the investigation, the hearing, representation, confidentiality, disciplinary sanctions and appeals.personneltoday.com, 14 Aug 03
Courtesy Bullying Online: Bullying Times

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) in their Clinical review ABC of psychological medicine Trauma 2002 estimate that 38% of the general population will experience assault, 28% serious motor vehicle crash, 14% serious injury, 17% natural disaster, 43% a shocking experience, 62% learning about trauma to others, 60% a sudden death of a significant other, and 90% of the population will experience a trauma.

The dark side of school life
(Filed: 09/09/2003)


For many children, the playground offers not fun but the misery of bullying. Christine Doyle talks to one victim and asks if the problem is getting worse




By now, the nation's children are settling back at school. Most, despite the nervousness of joining a new class or starting at a different school, eagerly look forward to slotting back into a social group and making new friends.


Torment: Sarah Fisher and her mother
For a minority, however, the return has been a moment of terror. Dominating their thoughts has been the fear that bullies who have tormented them in the past will be waiting to "get" them once again.

Sarah Fisher, 16, is an ambitious pupil who is determined to become a pathologist. Only a few weeks into the last school year, she was so badly bullied that she was struck dumb. She can still speak only in a whisper. In May, she had an operation for suspected appendicitis. Her appendix was removed, but the doctors could find nothing wrong, apart from some bowel inflammation. Her mother, Maria, believes the severe pain had been "a pronounced stress symptom".

When I meet Sarah at her home in Clanfield, Hampshire, she prints out a hate-filled email from one of the ringleaders of the students who ganged up on her at Horndean Technical College, Waterlooville: "How cool it would be repeatedly to run down Sarah Fisher and watch her ugly, scrawny little head explode so it looks like porridge and puke mixed together in a soup. I fucking hate that girl. She needs brutally murdering."

Bullying is a sinister side of school life, and can cast a blight over teenage years. In severe cases, some vulnerable children, such as Karl Peart, a shy 16-year-old from Ashington, Northumberland, feel driven to escape the torment by taking their own lives. In June, Karl wrote a letter to his parents, saying he could take no more, and swallowed an overdose of painkillers. In July, Thomas Thomason, who was only 11, took painkillers after being attacked by a gang on his way to school in Wallasey, Merseyside.

There are about 20 such deaths a year, and at least half of pupils say bullying is a problem, although experts are unsure if it is increasing. Organisations such as the Advice Centre for Education (Ace) and Young Minds, the mental heath charity for young people, think bullying is probably more frequently reported now than in the past, when many children suffered in silence. The growth of gangs, however, has created a breeding ground for those inclined to bully, while text-messaging and emails are new and sophisticated bullying weapons.

Parents are confused. Children must learn to stand up for themselves, but how can parents be alert to the changes in their children's behaviour that suggest serious bullying? Children who are different in some way - grossly overweight, unwilling to join in a gang, or who are perceived as swots - can attract the malign attention of those who wish to exert power by fear and intimidation. But children who do not stand out can also become victims of bullies.

Sarah is pretty, articulate - even though she whispers - and had a good circle of friends. "We cannot think why anyone would want to pick on her," says her mother. The trigger was a disputed goal during a football match last September, when Sarah twice yelled that the scorer was offside.

"I compromised, but the girl who had scored the goal started shouting, and afterwards said I had better watch out or she would get me. She and another ringleader ganged up with other girls. They told others not to talk to me, and only one friend supported me."

Like many victims, Sarah felt ashamed, guilty and inadequate. "I didn't want my parents to know about it. All I wanted was to creep home and sink into the lovely peace of my bedroom. I would cry every night and lie awake worrying. I worried, too, that if Mum went to the school, it would get worse."

The shoving and jostling continued. "I was given long, horrible stares when teachers were not looking and, when I lost my voice, they called me a retard. During my mock GCSEs, one of the ringleaders thumped my leg and threatened me. I felt scared all the time that something worse would happen."

Maria suspected something was wrong, and feels guilty she was not able to stop the bullying at the beginning. "Our GP pinned down what was happening," she says. "At first, he thought Sarah's loss of voice was due to an infection, but it did not clear up, and after a few weeks, he asked if anything was wrong at school. Sarah then told us about the bullying."

Psychologists say changes in speech, and even becoming mute, can be a physical reaction to severe stress. The body internalises frustration or the impact of shock by reacting against itself. In a similar case, a bullied 13-year-old girl lost her sight for almost two years.

Sarah's voice will recover in time. She demonstrates the scales and other exercises her speech therapist has given her, but says "the worst thing is not being able to sing".

Maria, who immediately reported the bullying to the school, was assured that "it would be dealt with". But the bullying continued and escalated. The final straw was a sickening episode during a shopping trip, says Maria. "The gang was present and split up into small groups and followed us everywhere, staring aggressively and shouting 'Mummy's girl'.

"In one shop, I told the ringleader she was in my way, and was subjected to a torrent of swearing - the girl looked possessed. She stuck her finger aggressively into my face and told me: 'You have made it so much worse for Sarah. You'd better watch out.' "

Maria reported the incident to the police, and a harassment order was placed on the girl. Attempts were made by the school to deal with the ringleaders, but the intimidation continued.

"I was so scared, I felt it was taking over my life," says Sarah. "I thought about ending it all, but I knew that was not the answer - and I could not do that to my family."

She was reluctant to return to school, except to take her GCSEs, and, even then, was so afraid of being attacked that she asked to sit the exams in a separate room. It was then that the hateful email arrived, followed by the pain that led to the removal of her appendix. "The day I left was the happiest in nine months," she says.

Preventing such misery in any child's life is critical, but there are no easy answers. A drive towards zero tolerance of bullies in schools was announced last week by education minister Ivan Lewis, who was bullied at school. Specialist consultants are to be made available, and Ofsted will be required to report on anti-bullying measures.

However, Maria believes the proposed action will be too remote from the problems. She thinks a more hands-on approach is required, with continual monitoring in classrooms and playgrounds.

"We were asked by the school to keep a record of what was happening, as if that would somehow solve the problem," she says. "I felt let down. I felt Sarah was seen as an irritant who would soon leave."

Seeing a doctor or counsellor when suspicion is first aroused can help to avert trouble, according to Ace. Peter Wilson, the director of Young Minds, says: "Bullying is a mental health issue, both for the bullied and the bully. We need primary mental health services and schools to act more closely together. The first step for anyone is to tell their parents or the school as soon as possible."

Happily, Sarah, who starts studying science A- and AS-levels at Chichester College this week, now seems to be recovering her confidence - if not yet her voice.

Early warning signs and symptoms

The child complains of stomach aches, possibly caused by the tension of taunting.
Shows an extreme reluctance to go to school or starts to play truant.
Suffers from frequent minor infections - a stressful environment can lower immune defences.
Appetite falls off unaccountably.
The child cries easily, especially at night, suggesting deep, unexplained unhappiness.
Shows persistent irritability, and snaps at parents and siblings.
Retreats to his bedroom after school or at weekends, when normally he would seek out friends.
There is a change in the child's sleeping patterns.
You or one of the child's teachers develops a growing sense that he is bottling something up or has become isolated. He might seem lethargic, and give the impression that he has his life on hold.
Take prompt action

Never feel that you will make matters worse by talking to a teacher or head of year. If your child has told you there is a definite problem, be as specific as you can with the school about dates, places and names of children involved.
Ask to see a copy of the school's anti-bullying policy and make a note of the action proposed in your child's case. Let the school know if the situation improves or gets worse. If very little action is taken, contact a parent governor, or, as a last resort, your MP.
Talk to your GP, who might suggest referral to a local counsellor or primary services for adolescents.
Encourage your child and boost their confidence.
For more information, contact:


Young Minds, a mental health information service for parents and children, tel: 0800 018 2138
The Advisory Centre for Education has published a booklet on tackling bullying. Tel: 0808 800 5793, or see www.ace-ed.org.uk; Anti Bullying Campaign, tel: 020 7354 8321
ChildLine, tel: 0800 1111
Department for Education and Skills, www.dfes.gov.uk/bullying
Courtesy Tim Field Bullying Times

Few employers understand how a bully impairs productivity, hinders performance, and damages profitability. This page looks at a typical example of the effect of one serial bully on one department's performance.

Population of the UK: 60,000,000

Number of workers / employees: 28,000,000

The majority of Advice Line cases involve a manager bullying a subordinate in a professional or semi-professional context.

The average wage for a lower-middle level manager or professional is around £20,000 pa.

The effect of bullying on a targeted subordinate is to cut their work rate and effectiveness by 50% (at least), therefore the annual cost of bullying to the employer in this department is £10,000.

The serial bully impairs the effectiveness of other employees, so say a further four employees earning £15,000 pa have their performance impaired by 33% (4 x £5000), plus a further eight employees earning £10,000 pa have their effectiveness cut by 20%. ie 8 x £2000 = £16,000.

Target: £10,000
+4*£5000: £20,000
+8*£2000: £16,000
----------
£46,000
=======

Experience from over 6000 Advice Line cases suggests these estimates are conservative.

The majority of bullying is carried out by a superior, so say the bully is a grade higher on a salary of £25,000pa. The serial bully is a dead weight who survives by plagiarising other peoples' work so his/her annual cost is £25,000. Although glib and plausible, only when the serial bully leaves will it be discovered how little work that person completed - and much of that will be to a poor standard.

Serial bully: £25,000
Effect on employees: £46,000
----------
£71,000
=======

The lowest estimate of bullying, an IPD survey, estimated that 1 in 8 workers bullied which equates to around 3.5 million people.

For safety, take my estimate of 1 person in 100 being a serial bully, therefore 1/100 of 28 million is 280,000 (less than 1/10th of the CIPD's estimate).

280,000 x £71,000 = £19.88 billion
Cost of stress and stress-related illness (TUC, HSE, CBI etc): £12 billion

Cost to UK plc: around £32 billion a year.

This doesn't include consequential costs, legal costs, insurance costs, compensation costs, staff turnover costs, re-recruitment and re-training costs, loss of investment in training and experience, loss of employee potential, benefit costs, injury to health, loss of revenue due to employee being out of work and no longer paying tax, family breakdown, costs to society, etc.

courtesy http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/typical.htm

02/10/2003: According to European research, the fatal accident rate in enterprises with fewer than 50 workers is around double that of larger companies. And with more than 75 million EU workers employed in the SME sector, preventing work-related accidents and ill health in SMEs is one of the EU’s most pressing safety and health issues. Go to http://agency.osha.eu.int/news/press_releases/en/01_10_2003/index.htm

Half of health visitors, school nurses and community nurses working in the NHS have been bullied by their managers, according to a survey.
One in three of the 563 people questioned said the bullying was so bad they had to take time off work.

Constant criticism and humiliation were the most common complaints. Others said they were shouted at or marginalised.

The Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association, which carried out the survey, urged ministers to act.

Few complain

The survey found that very few people who had been bullied complained to senior managers.

Most said they were afraid they would make their own situation worse by complaining.

The human and financial cost of bullying to the NHS is too high for it to be ignored any longer

Karen Reay, CPHVA
Of those who did complain, just one in 10 said they were satisfied with how it had been dealt with.

One in three said they were appalled by how their managers responded.

The survey also revealed that bullying causes many people to take time off work because of illness and stress.

Of those questioned, 34% said they had called in sick as a result of being bullied. Most of these were off work for at least a month.

The CPHVA urged ministers to tackle the problem. It called for anti-bullying ombudsmen to be appointed across the NHS.

They would have the power to investigate complaints, compensate staff and discipline bullies.

"The human and financial cost of bullying to the NHS is too high for it to be ignored any longer," said Karen Reay of the CPHVA.

"At the moment staff aren't sure who to turn to when every existing avenue has been pursued."

The Department of Health expects management to take this problem very seriously

Department of Health spokeswoman
She urged the government to take action.

"If I were a government health minister or a senior NHS manager, I would be very worried about the corrosive effect that bullying has on NHS staff and the knock-on effects in terms of patient/client care, with nurses being off work for considerable lengths of time."

Ministers have pledged to stamp out bullying.

A spokeswoman for Department of Health said NHS managers were required to show they were tackling the problem.

"Bullying and harassment makes work intolerable for many and is unacceptable in whatever form it may take.

"Employers have a duty to ensure that their staff have a safe and healthy place to work.

"The Department of Health expects management to take this problem very seriously.

"That is why we introduced new requirements and targets on harassment.

She said employers had to demonstrate through their annual staff surveys improvements in the confidence of staff in tackling harassment.

The survey results were published ahead of the CPHVA's annual conference in Harrogate, which starts later this week.
Courtesy Tim Field Bullying Times

Drop dead

It is the thoroughly modern way to die at work. Major occupational diseases of the 21st century will be heart attacks, suicide and strokes. Hazards looks at why so many of us are being worked into the ground.



Hell, the cases aren't rare. They are just not statistics.

Dr Sid Watkins died when his body could no longer stand his "crazy" working hours. Stressed out teacher Pamela Relf killed herself. So did mental health nurse Richard Pocock. And postal worker Jermaine Lee. All died because their jobs were just too much to bear.

But these deaths, and hundreds like them each year, are not recorded as "work-related deaths." Dying because the job was beyond a human's capabilities is, in most countries at least, not a workplace problem.

In the real world, it is - and it is a problem that is getting worse. The 2003 Stressed Out survey by the Samaritans, the UK emotional support charity, found: "People's jobs are the single biggest cause of stress… with over a third (36 per cent) of Briton's citing it as one of their biggest stressors." (1)

And it is worse at work. The Samaritans found 23 per cent of people working full time get stressed every day compared to just 16 per cent of those who aren't working.

It says the survey provides evidence that "people believe that they are more stressed than five years ago - the majority of people are experiencing similar or greater levels of stress than five years ago."

It adds that 45 per cent of those who have felt stressed in Britain have been depressed as a consequence.

The Samaritans 2003 resource pack says: "It is commonly accepted that high stress, together with easy access to means, are important factors which put people in certain occupations at greater risk of dying by suicide
Courtesy Tim Field Bullying Times

Bosses urged to cut work stress


Stress can have a serious impact on people's health
More than half of British workers believe bosses should be actively trying to improve their employees' health, a survey suggests.
Most of the 2,020 people questioned said it would cut stress levels and improve general wellbeing.

Most said it would also boost productivity and reduce sick leave.

The survey was carried out by Taylor Nelson Sofres for private health insurer Standard Life Healthcare.

High cost

The findings come just weeks after another survey suggested that stress costs British industry around £1.24bn each year.

The poll of 700 managers indicated that stress was lowering productivity. Two out of three blamed it for higher rates of staff turnover.

All employers have a duty to make sure that their employees health is not put at risk from exposure to work related stress

Chris Rowe,
Health and Safety Executive
In September, a survey by the think-tank The Work Foundation found many managers simply do not feel able to help employees' cope with mental health problems.

Their lack of confidence was shared by employees. Just 2% of the 1,596 people questioned said their manager would be able to help if they had a problem.

The Health and Safety Executive said employers must make sure the health of their workers is not damaged by stress.

"All employers have a duty to make sure that their employees health is not put at risk from exposure to work related stress," said Chris Rowe, its head of policy section.

"We welcome Standard Life Healthcare's survey which encourages employers to take stress seriously and ensure that the scale and impact are well known."

Stephen Bevan, director of research at The Work Foundation, also welcomed the findings.

"Employers already have a legal duty of care over the psychological well-being of their staff yet virtually none are carrying out risk analysis or putting preventative measures in place.

"This research highlights growing concern over mental ill-health in the workplace and its economic and human cost."

Mike Hall, chief executive of Standard Life Healthcare, said: "This survey shows that attitudes towards the way companies are engaged in the wellbeing of their staff are changing.

"People are now looking for their employers, not only to ensure that their healthcare is covered when they are sick but to intervene to prevent work related illnesses, such as stress.

"It's a win-win situation for employers as active management of staff stress and well-being can lead to an increase in company productivity and a reduction in illness related absence from work."

The Economist 3rd January 04 reports that most doctors tend to give out a sick note when requested. Recent research found that GP’s find stress difficult to diagnose. They do not have the time to make adequate psychological assessments and diagnoses of stress, depression and back pain. Mary Church a GP is quoted in the Economist “We don’t have time to work through people’s problems, so they are likely to get some quiet sympathy and a sick note”
The Daily Mail 5th Jan 03 led with “Six Million on Sick List”, “Doctors admit they write sick notes on demand, in a rapidly increasing proportion of cases, such as stress, depression and back pain, they only have the patient’s word to go on.
Longer term sickness has more than trebled in the past 25 years and stress is increasingly used as the reason. Numbers in the category of stress and depression rose between 1995 and 2003 from 445,000 to 846,000.

A leading expert on psychopaths Professor Robert Hare of the University of British Columbia has identified how psychopaths are able to function incognito in society often achieving management roles where they can dominate others.
Professor Hare draws attention to how these individuals are extremely destructive for a company, they are likely to destroy its reputation, trample and devastate staff and even defraud the company.
The key characteristic of all psychopaths is that they have no conscience and lack all capacity for empathy. Estimates suggest that 1% of the population fall in to this category, which means there are around 600,000 psychopaths in the UK.
Psychopaths need victims and they leave a trail of devastation in the workplace. Professor Hare, a consultant for the FBI and an honorary professor at the University of Cardiff said; “It’s very easy for a psychopath to put on a good show which will get past the head-hunters and through job interviews. Wherever you get power, prestige and money you will find them Psychopaths leave victims all over the place. The most important thing is to be aware, if you suspect you are working with a psychopath. Once you take that position you are in a better position to deal with them”
Professor Hare has devised a 107-point test, known as the B-scan to flush out the “snakes in suits”
Reported Daily Mail 13/01/04