Home > News > September 2006 > 21 September 2006

95% of managers are stressed at work, says survey

A survey by online learning provider, SkillSoft, claims that 95 per cent of managers find life at work stressful and 28 per cent have taken time off work as a direct result.

To help address this, SkillSoft is offering three full courses via the demonstration area of its website that aim to help people in dealing with stress.

SkillSoft says the courses, which will be available until the end of 2006, can be accessed without charge at: www.skillsoft.com/EMEA/demo.asp

The three free courses are:

• Coping with stress - duration approximately 3 hours
• Discovering Balance - duration approximately 4 hours
• Time as a Resource - duration approximately 2.5 hours

Kevin Young, managing director of SkillSoft EMEA, said: "Stress in the workplace is a major issue for businesses. Helping people to manage stress can have a positive effect on their effectiveness at work and reduce the number of stress-related absences. Non-managerial staff can benefit too; our research shows that they are almost as stressed as their bosses."

More than half the managers surveyed can never imagine a stage in their life when they are completely stress-free and 58 per cent of managers think they probably spend most of their lives stressed in one way or another. According to the survey, almost 70 per cent of managers say they wake up in the night due to feelings of stress.

According to the survey, the major causes of management stress at work are*:

1. Workload - 61.6 per cent
2. Deadlines - 50.3 per cent
3. Feeling undervalued - 38.9 per cent
4. Having to work longer hours than they should - 37.3 per cent
5. Having to take on other people's work - 34.1 per cent
6. Lack of control over their day - 31.9 per cent
7. Targets - 30.3 per cent
8. Type of work - 30.3 per cent
9. Too many emails - 28.1 per cent
10. Organisational changes that impact on them and their job - 27 per cent

The top ten colleague irritations are**:

1. Seeing other people not pulling their weight - 56.1 per cent
2. Bosses changing their minds about what they want you to do - 37.3 per cent
3. Lack of support from bosses - 29.7 per cent
4. Pressure from bosses - 28.6 per cent
5. Interruptions by bosses - 23.8 per cent
6. Feeling put-upon by bosses - 22.2 per cent
7. Lack of support from colleagues - 21.6 per cent
8. Bullying behaviour by bosses - 17.8 per cent
9. Feeling put-upon by colleagues - 11.4 per cent
10. Bullying behaviour by colleagues 9.2 per cent

* respondents could pick more than one cause of stress
** respondents could pick more than one colleague irritation

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