Workshop abstract:

Output is lost as a result of a variety of factors.  As many days are lost through short-term absence caused by work-related stress, as were lost by strikes in the 1970s.  Another factor might be “presenteeism”, especially if people keep going to work for fear of stigmatisation, even when they should not.  Output is also lost as people are obliged to take lower-level jobs or leave work completely.

These estimates exclude the costs associated with the suffering endured by people who experience work as particularly stressful; these costs are far more difficult to quantify.  They also exclude the costs of benefit payments to people temporarily or permanently off work; these benefits are merely transfers between people working and people not working.  

Recognition of the costs of work-related stress is useful in determining the efficiency of treatments – something in which NICE (the National Institute of Clinical Health and Excellence) has become much more interested of late.  Recognition should also help structure initiatives that follow up the Black review Working for a Healthier Tomorrow; these are supposed to pay special attention to mental health and work.

The current recession might be seen as making work-related stress an issue of limited concern.  As has been feared with respect to family-friendly practices and policies to promote disadvantaged groups, in the current recession, policies to improve working conditions might be deemed luxuries that cannot be afforded.

However, it must also be recognised that the current recession is likely to intensify stress at work.  Uncertainty, itself, breeds stress.  Many organisations trying to survive by raising productivity will be putting their employees under increasing pressure.   

Whatever one’s perspective on the current recession may be, one thing is clear: any short-term gains will have long-term costs – not only for employers and for individual employees, but also for society at large.