News on 03 October 2000
According to an Industrial Society report on work-related
stress, the trend in job designs intended to improve productivity and
efficiency could cause mental health problems among UK employees. The
Industrial Society therefore urges the government to guide employers on
the links between job design and stress.
The report, ‘New Work, New Stress’ says badly designed jobs
which are repetitive and demanding with low job control, e.g. call centres,
are bad for workers’ mental health. The Health and Safety at Work
Act 1974 and subsequent regulations, states that employers have a statutory
duty to safeguard the psychological health of their employees. Pat McGuinness,
author of the report, argues that although job design guidance is important,
policy makers need to rethink definitions and approaches to stress, to
take into account the wide range of risks at play in today's workplaces.
He says: "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 which 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 report is critical of popular employer initiatives such as counselling
or employee assistance programmes, lifestyle campaigns and stress management
programmes because they emphasise the individual's responsibility for
controlling stress-related illness.
It is suggested companies consider the impact of organisational changes,
concentrate on training managers to spot signs of serious job strain and
deteriorating mental health before they become a problem, and encourage
workplace cultures which do not see stress as a sign of weakness.
