Firms face 'strain drain' due to stress 

Britain could soon face a "strain drain" as increasing numbers of workers choose to leave their jobs because of excessive stress in the office and the unbearable pressure applied by employers, research suggested yesterday. 

Many professionals are finding it difficult to strike a healthy balance between their work and home life, and many are making severe sacrifices in their personal lives to cope, the study indicated. 

Employers could lose more than 40% of their workforce in the next year as a direct result of the pressure on staff, according to the research. 

Nearly one in three employees said their health was suffering because of work and more than one in four said their sex life had suffered. About a third of employees questioned by the business magazine Management Today said they used alcohol to relieve the pressure while more than one in 10 admitted turning to therapy and counselling. 

Of those people who said they were planning to look for new work in the next 12 months, about 37% said they wanted to leave because they felt that their work went unrecognised by their superiors; 35% wanted to quit because they felt unable to juggle their working regime with their home life; 22% said high stress levels made them want to get out while 18% pointed to the pressures of an impossibly heavy workload. 

This apparently bleak portrait of the modern workplace is worsened by the revelation that 55% of the 2,000 Management Today readers questioned admitted to feeling "frequently" or "very frequently" stressed at work, and another 50% said they were too busy at work to form proper relationships outside of the office. 

The magazine's editor Rufus Olins said last night: "The scale of people looking for new work - 40% - was startling. There clearly is a significant number of people who are unhappy with the environment at work and it is very important for employers to take this on board." 

With such a large number of staff feeling undervalued at work, employers could take simple action by thanking their staff more often for work completed. 

"There is still a culture where employees are blamed when things go wrong, but rarely thanked when things go smoothly," he said. "One of the first things to suffer when someone is under an enormous amount of pressure is their health and their relationships. "This raises an important question for British industry, of whether stressful working environments are ultimately very productive."

Source: Guardian July 26, 1999