Tackle work stress, bosses told

Employers need to pay more attention to the levels of stress and anxiety in the workplace, NHS advisers have said.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said the cost of work related mental illness was £28bn - a quarter of the UK’s total sick bill.

Bad managers were the single biggest cause of problems, the group claimed.

It said simple steps such as giving positive feedback and extra days off, or allowing flexible working could cut the effects by a third.

As well as taking measures like these, NICE urged employers to invest in training for managers and mentoring for staff to help career development.

More than 13 million working days a year are lost because of work related stress, anxiety and depression.

To convince employers to act, NICE has designed a calculator to show the potential savings of supporting staff more.

Professor Cary Cooper, an expert in workplace psychology from Lancaster University who helped draw up the recommendations, said: “You cannot overestimate the importance of saying ‘Well done’ to staff, but so often it does not happen.

“Managers will tell you when you are doing something wrong, but not when you are doing it right.”

But he said the problem was not just to do with staff taking time off.

“Presenteeism, where people come to work but add no value, is if anything more of a problem, especially during a recession.

“People are so scared that they go to work when they are not fit to.”