“The health of a company depends of the health of the individuals who make it up”

What stress ?

You are not without being unaware of that the stress became the disease of the century, disease of time and pressures. We evolve in the social temporalities very filled, responsible for contradictions, and work in the moment. The stress is the response of the organization to factors of the physiological and psychological aggressions as to the emotions which require an adaptation.

When does it become prejudicial ? 

It becomes negative when the individual has the feeling to be overflowed and always materializes by physical tensions, pains, irritations, tiredness, sleep disorder signs, bulimia, and frequently causes diseases. New technologies which induce the immediacy unconsciously are to some extent persons in charge for its development.

Consequences

Within the framework of the company, the stress makes sick and causes absenteeism consequently, causes errors, reduced the productivity and the quality of the production and thus increases the costs. The stress can be at the origin of accidents; it contributes to the demotivation of the personnel and perverts the environment of work, the “culture of company”.

Awakening 

Various studies show the rise to power of the mental, nervous sufferings or morals. Certain leaders become aware of it because they measure the consequences of them on the productivity and the collective effectiveness.

Solutions  

According to a study carried out by “Touch Research Insitute”, a division of the medical school of the University of Miami which is devoted to the study of the touch and its medical applications, the stress of with work is one of the greatest causes of the low productivity, of the increase in the costs and the complaints of all kinds. This study showed that a 15 minutes care twice per week, practiced on a chair planned for the Amma care, brought a reduction in the stress to work and a significant increase in the productivity.

Results  

This care allows :

• The reduction of the nervous and muscular tensions
• A better blood and lymphatic circulation
• A repairing sleep
• A fuller breathing
• A more solid immune system
• An appeasing of the pain in general and evils of back in particular
• A better control on the cerebral hyperactivity
• An environment of advantage humanized on the place of work

Cost of the stress for the companies 

The costs of the stress for the companies remain generally hidden. After examination, six types of costs can be identified (insurance and social security, legal, organisational direct, organisational indirect, réputationnels and decisional). Among them, only the direct organisational costs (losses of effectiveness due to the absenteeism) can be estimated. They would represent from 0,1 to 1,8% of the wage bill according to the cases.

According to the European Foundation for the improvement of the working conditions, 30% of the European workers allot their problems of health to the stress. 600 million working days would be lost each year in the European Union due to stress, with a cost estimated between 3 and 4% of the GNP. In France, 11% of the employees already had one or more stops disease related to the stress. To the United States, the cost of the stress corresponds to 300 million lost days, and accounts for 60% of the industrial accidents, at a cost of 150 billion dollars.

The professional stress is problems which agitate more and more the occupational medicine, the companies and the employees. Conscious of the stake, the principal European trade unions are leaning in their turn on the question. For that, they signed a European outline agreement last October in order to initiate a better comprehension and a better prevention of a phenomenon of company and company.

To prevent, eliminate or reduce the problems resulting from the stress related to the work, here which summarizes the ambition of this outline agreement, and the commitment entered into by its signatories. Companies which are invited to limit the stress by individual or collective measurements, or by calling upon external experts. Whereas the workload increases, that the employee must be at the same time powerful and general-purpose, the engagement of the companies in a process of reduction of the stress more than is ever awaited, and on all the hierarchical levels.

Some figures  

• 63% of the executives suffer from the stress
• According to a study of Credoc: the number of stressed with doubled in ten years
• A pathological anxiety touches 10 to 15% of the population. It is there a rate common to all the developed countries
• 30% of the employees would suffer from the professional stress
• 80% of the requests for change come from relational problems

• In the United States, the stress accounts for approximately 60% of the absentee rate
• The Americans quantified to 60 billion dollars the cost of the stress in the companies

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