The upside of workplace stress

By ALISON HORWOOD

Clammy hands, racing heart, addled brain - excessive stress has always been detrimental at work, but its effects will be wider-reaching with the introduction of the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill.

The bill classifies "stress" and "fatigue" as occupational hazards, boosts the maximum fine from $100,000 to $500,000 and allows anyone - including unions and individual employees - to prosecute.

The select committee overseeing the bill was due to report next Tuesday but the calling of an early election has put that on hold.

However, regardless of the makeup of the new Government, the bill is expected to become law, with few changes, after September.

Its arrival may prove controversial because many companies claim it will thwart efforts to boost productivity. Unions say it will promote a happy, and therefore healthy, workforce.

Alison Drewry, a senior lecturer in occupational medicine at Auckland University and a surgeon commander in the Navy, says workplace stress can be positive, but the legislation runs the risk of turning it into a disease.

"Employers would not want to eliminate stress from the workplace," she says. "Most human achievements, such as scientific discovery and athletic ability, have been made in the presence of stressors."

Drewry says there is an important distinction between a stressor - a physical, emotional or social demand, such as a divorce - and the stress, or human reaction to it.

The challenge for employers in light of the legislation is good management, she says.

"It is important for everyone - employees, management, workers and supervisors - to be responsible for stress and create a sensible workplace."

Management should fill vacancies immediately with the right person for the job, provide a correct level of supervision, a sense of fairness, and open lines of communication, anti-harassment programmes and counselling.

Responsibility also lies with the individual to ensure he or she is fit to work, says Drewry.

"Is it really fair if an employee says they are suffering fatigue, but is staying up all night and partying?"

If not managed properly, stress can be costly for both employer and employee.

For the individual, it can affect health and well-being. For the company, productivity suffers due to mistakes, apathy and absenteeism.

One of the difficulties with the legislation is that it is impossible to measure a stress level. Vulnerability to stress varies from day to day, year to year, and between individuals.

It is also impossible to gauge how much stress is due to work and how much to external factors such as relationship problems, Drewry says.

Susan Hornsby, a senior lawyer with the organisational performance consultancy The Empower Group, assists employers to put frameworks in place to minimise stress, and defends mainly employers against stress claims brought by staff.

In the past five years more employees have brought stress claims, perhaps because of increased industrial pressures and more awareness of the ability to sue employers.

In a landmark case this year, the Court of Appeal accepted that burnout from overwork caused a former Auckland probation officer's heart disease.

But it did knock $100,000 off the record damages awarded to Christopher John Gilbert by the Employment Court.

Ross Gilmour, a consultant psychologist with Gilmour McGregor & Associates, works with Government departments, private companies and multinationals on how to address and manage stress.

The demand for his expertise has increased in light of the proposed legislation, but no more so than in the late 1980s when stress management became a catch-phrase due to widespread restructuring, he says.

Some occupations make people more susceptible to stress: shiftwork or emotionally challenging jobs such as social work.

But Gilmour says stress can also arise from mental underload, where the work is boring, repetitive and under-stimulating.

He says people often work in a "high-performance zone" when stressed, with good productivity and increased energy. But if the stress increases, they can start suffering from symptoms such as weekend migraines, sickness and insomnia.

If those symptoms are ignored the individual can often become overwhelmed by stress, he says, "where one little extra task one day becomes the straw that breaks the camel's back".

Much of Gilmour's work with individuals is in how to recognise signs of stress and develop a strategy for dealing with it, such as relaxation techniques, worry management and maintaining a balanced lifestyle.

His work with managers addresses the implications of the new legislation, including how to reduce the chances of an individual making a stress-related claim, recognising stress in workers, managing change effectively, and establishing a culture where stress is minimised.

Although levels of stress have always been difficult, if not impossible to gauge, Gilmour McGregor has developed a survey that allows people to assess how stressed they are compared with the general public. Until mid-July it is available free on www.stressproofing.com.

The survey, which assesses the source, vulnerability and symptoms of stress, is designed to inform management how their workers become stressed and what they can do to change it.

Gilmour says people have created a culture where a high-stress job is seen as an important job.

"Wouldn't it be good to change that, to have a culture where someone sits down at work during morning tea and says, 'God, I'm stressed'. Instead of the person next to them saying, 'So am I', they say, 'More fool you. Why don't you get some balance in your life?' "