At the start of what is set to be a challenging year, 92% of employees are experiencing stress in the workplace and almost a third (31%) fear redundancy in the coming year, according to a new independent survey by global e-learning provider, SkillSoft.
The independent online study, conducted by Onepoll on behalf of SkillSoft, took place at the end of November 2008 and involved 3,000 respondents across 14 business sectors, revealed that 44% of workers were losing sleep through stress, almost a third (32%) were becoming over-emotional for the same reason and 15% were drinking to help them cope.
Within the workplace, the fear of having an increased workload and worrying about redundancy are the top two stress factors for people, with 34% and 31% of people feeling these are their biggest fears for the coming year.
“There is a worry out there about what the future holds for employment and people are nervous that they won’t have the skills to cope with what may be required of them to keep their jobs,” says Kevin Young, managing director of SkillSoft EMEA. “Stress is affecting productivity too, with 24% of people admitting to taking time off work due to stress.”
The top three stress sectors were Construction where 25% felt stress ‘all of the time’, Education, with 24% and Medicine/Caring with 23%. HR stood out, not because it reflected the highest levels but because of a constant ‘sometimes’ level of 83%, perhaps due to having to administer employee redundancies and manage employee stress.
Almost a quarter of employees feel they have a lack of control over their day, a third are frustrated with their working environment and 15% feel they don’t have enough training to allow them to do their jobs as well as they’d like.
www.skillsoft.com
Visit the Fuse Learning website at: www.fuselearning.co.uk
You must log in to post a comment.