Today’s marketplace is a fast paced and continuously changing environment. Business competitiveness, technological advancements and changes in our society as a whole combine to create significant demands of us. Since some of these pressures are beyond the control of the employee, organisations must act to minimise undue pressure, and manage the reasonable pressures that are inevitable. The resilience programme is a dynamic process that will help to identify actions that create and improve the work environment.
“When people feel strong and resilient they perform better. They win, their families win, and the corporation that employs them win”.
(Loehr and Schwartz – Harvard Business Review, 2001)
A resilient working environment is one that is stimulating, challenging and enriching. Such a work environment strives to meet personal needs and business goals through enhancing individual health and well-being. By improving the way work is accomplished, this approach enables individuals and teams to maximise their potential and simultaneously contributes to sustainable business success.
Our resilience programme aims to enhance individual and organisational capability, whilst simultaneously investigating early warning signs and possible causes of mental stress.
Work-related stress has long been a major cause of occupational ill-health. A stressful workforce results in high sickness absence, high staff turnover and ineffective work performance of employees. 60% of all work absence is stress related (HSE). Stress costs the UK economy over £7 billion each year (CBI) which equates to around 66 million working days are lost each year (Institute of Personal Development).
According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), up to 5 million people feel ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ stressed at work. Whatever the cause of workplace pressures, the usual result on both the individual and the organisation is inefficient performance, which has a direct impact on organisational performance. However, organisations cannot expect to address a problem if they do not know that it exists.
Work-related stress could be tackled by organisations working with their employees to identify issues at source and agreeing to realistic and workable strategies to tackle stress. Synergy has identified several areas of possible risk factors that can contribute to work-related stress, including the seven key areas contained in the HSE Management Standards for workplace stress.
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