ORGANISATIONS with a highly stressed workforce show decreased levels of risk taking, more missed opportunities, distortion of communications and more industrial relations problems, according to an occupational psychologist, Mr Richard Wynne.
He was speaking at the Employee Assistance Programme conference in Dublin yesterday, where the theme was "Stress At Work".
Employee performances and productivity suffered in such situations, Mr Wynn said. "Also, absenteeism tends to increase, morale tends to decline in the workplace and creativity tends to decrease."
Failure to protect employees from stress could be costly. Ms Deborah Spence, a solicitor with A.& L. Goodbody, told the conference that sums as high as £175,000 had been awarded in the British courts to employees who had suffered mental breakdowns as a result of work stress.
British court decisions had a "persuasive authority" before the Irish courts, Ms Spence said.
Even where the employee was shown to have a predisposition to conditions such as manic depression, the employer could still be liable to damages.
There is a growing body of Irish law which shows that employers must take reasonable steps to care for employees' mental and physical health.
A ship's officer and shop steward with the B & I Line, Mr Sean O'Byrne, was awarded £35,900 for exposure to asbestos. A large part of the award was to compensate him for the mental anguish he had suffered, even though the court accepted he had suffered no physical injury.
Misconceptions about stress persisted in Ireland, Mr Wynne said. Often the same taboos applied to it as psychiatric illness. This was changing, as research showed the links between workplace factors, stress and illness.
Companies were realising that increasing competitive pressures and reducing their operations could generate stress.
A positive development had been the work of statutory bodies and the Barrington Commission on Health, Safety and Welfare at Work.
Nevertheless, many companies had "only a hazy notion of the precise nature of the problem", Mr Wynne said.
Often they viewed problems in terms of absenteeism, morale or industrial relations. Even the more sensitive companies failed to realise that occupational stress was defined in legislation as an occupational health issue to be handled within normal health and safety procedures.
To deal effectively with stress meant identifying and characterising its nature in the workplace, developing initiatives to meet local requirements, and treating individuals.
This could range from boosting individual coping skills to referring people for treatment.
Looking for a definition of stress was like trying to define the meaning of life, according to the director of occupational medical services at the Health and Safety Authority, Mr Dan Murphy.
The stress equation was further complicated by some people having a greater coping capacity than others.
There are no easy answers to the question of stress at work. Some managers think that work is only part of the problem and that it is not worth spending time and resources on stress.
But reducing exposure to it is as important as reducing the exposure of employees to carcinogens. Workplace stress factors can be identified and controlled and the employer must minimise the risk.