The previous perception of companies regarding work stress was that work stress was a small personal problem of employees, but new research is the opposite. It looks at it from different angles, tells how to judge it, and also tells easy solutions to solve it through risk management skills. Therefore, work stress is not a small problem, but a business problem.

Workplace stress is a fundamental business risk, not an HR problem.

In the olden days, companies and office people used to think that if an employee was fired for work Mental stress If it's happening then it's his A personal problem is They used to say that this employee should handle it himself or more H.R (H.R. means human resources department) give him some advice or give him a short class on how to reduce stress. They took it like it was no big deal, that's all Psychological or health is a small matter of

But in today's era this thought is absolutely Wrong and out of date It's done. The fact is that Work stress Not of a single servant, but of the whole A major threat to business has become That's it The main issue As much as the company Accounting for money or The work There is an error in the method.

When we consider stress as just a small problem and business practical strategy (i.e. not part of the larger project of running the work), then this one Big mistake is Companies should do it Significant financial risks Like take it seriously and solve it completely Large systems Replace the If they do not do this, their business will be in loss.

Industry surveys and what they show

A famous surveying company Deloitte Recently, it has been revealed that the big ones Officers And owner (called executives) are, among them approx 94 percent They understand that the employees Take care of health And theirs guidance It's theirs to do Major responsibility is

But on the other hand, among the same senior officers 68 percent He also believed that he The reality To take care of the health of the employees Not enough work are doing That is, he would say Health is important, but would do There are very few.

This The difference between saying and doing Another company Aflac The data made it more clear. More employees in 2024 than in 2023 felt their company was theirs Mental health should be more careful.

All these data tell us that companies focus on employee well-being spend money are doing (like workshops etc.), those of people Stress to the real problems of Not properly resolved Be able to do it.

In fact, all this is happening because companies stress measuring i failed are That's it Testing Not being able to figure out how much stress really is and where it's coming from. Companies own Financial risk (loss of money), Business risk (Fear of stoppage of work), and Reputational risk (Fear of bad name) is measured and managed, but Stress One to Significant business risk They neither measure nor handle it by understanding.

If the companies Stress Like money and business Starting point Make it a big one danger By understanding Planning If they do, they can understand and improve the well-being of their employees change can

The real financial toll of work stress:

We discussed earlier that work stress is not just an employee problem but a business problem. Now let's see how much this stress costs companies. A study was conducted in some large companies in the United States and the United Kingdom, which revealed that if a company with 1,000 employees has high levels of stress, it has to incur an additional cost of $5.3 million (approximately 145 million Pakistani rupees) per year.

This additional expense occurs primarily in three major ways: poor control of money, increased business risk, and reduced productivity.

1. Cost: Increased cost of illness and insurance

The first and most direct impact of stress is on health care costs.

Sickness costs more: Employees who are under a lot of stress run up to two-and-a-half times more health insurance bills than their calmer counterparts. That is, they are more sick and their treatment is expensive. All this burden ultimately has to be borne by the company itself.

Rising cost of insurance: One of the biggest threats facing companies worldwide is that health insurance is becoming more expensive. In the US, insurance premiums have increased by 28% between 2020 and 2024.

If companies manage employee workloads properly, they can curb this rising healthcare cost and save themselves millions of rupees.

2. Risk Reduction: Mistakes and Loss of Reputation

Stress doesn't just cost money, it also threatens compliance with business rules and regulations.

Fear of Big Mistakes: 12 percent of employees surveyed admitted that pressure caused them to make mistakes, not complete work on time, or take wrong shortcuts to finish work quickly, which could lead to legal problems.

11 times higher risk: Worryingly, employees who were under a lot of stress were 11 times more likely to make such mistakes or take shortcuts.

Big loss: If these mistakes are big and the law is violated, the company can face heavy fines. The bigger problem is that people lose trust in the company and its reputation (good reputation) is greatly damaged.

This means that if you want to save your business from failure and maintain your reputation, managing employee stress is the first step.

3. Sustained performance: The silent killer of productivity

Constant stress sneakily eats away at your office's ability to work (productivity) and you don't even know it.

Leave and attrition: Workers who are highly stressed take eight times more sick leave than their less stressed peers, and are four times more likely to leave their jobs.

Loss per employee: According to one estimate, one highly stressed employee costs a company an average of $12,000 in lost productivity per year. This loss occurs due to vacations, not working diligently despite being at work, and leaving a job.

The biggest cost of attrition: Of all these losses, the biggest cost is employee attrition, estimated at $3.5 million a year. Because when a good employee leaves, it costs as much as the salary to find and train a new one.

Vacation Losses: Vacations alone cost employers over $1 million a year.

All these figures are screaming that if we don't reduce stress, the company's performance will continue to decline and profitability will be adversely affected.

A new way to measure tension:

We first learned how much work stress is causing financial damage to companies. Now the question is, when everyone knows that the loss is happening, why can't the companies control it?

The real problem is that measuring (measuring) stress is considered very difficult. Most senior executives believe that stress is a personal, emotional and heart issue, that it affects each person differently, so it cannot be measured.

Why do traditional methods fail?

Companies today use old methods, such as:

Questioning employees (survey): Ask them how they are feeling.

Pulse Checks: Answering small questions.

These methods only give a glimpse of the emotions of the employees, but they never tell how much the business is suffering due to this stress. For example, how much was productivity reduced? How much did the cost increase? Or how big is the risk of making a mistake? Because these methods do not link stress to money or business results, senior executives do not value them.

Solution: "Stress Risk Scale"

A new method or scale has been invented to solve this age-old problem, called the "Stress Risk Scale".

It is not an emotional thing, but a scientific tool that has been developed by analyzing large research reports.

This scale keeps a regular and systematic record of employee stress, meaning which employee is at what level of risk.

What is its benefit?

When a company sees a large number of employees moving into high-stress territory on this scale (i.e., increasing risk), management gets a clear signal. This signal tells them that urgent action is now required and they should replace their old policies with new strategies.

Simply put, the focus is no longer just on identifying stress, but on what the actual cost of that stress is to the business, and how to manage it as a loss of money.

Beginning of stress risk assessment.

If a company Stress If she wants to avoid the loss of Measuring stress Let's start. Its way too simple is:

The company only once in every six months or year from its employees Simple question ask:

"How often do you feel very stressed, anxious, or nervous at work?"

Employees have to answer it in these few words: "never," "occasionally," "sometimes," "often," or "all the time."

Important: This question will be asked anonymously and the results will not be given to a single employee, but to the entire department or team. This information will not be used to monitor the employee, but to make necessary changes to the work environment.

Three Types of Employees in the Workplace (Three Zones of Stress)

By answering this one question The leader (Officers) to their entire workforce Stress In terms of Three different parts It can be divided into three groups, first group, second group and third group.

Group I:

Employees in this region rarely or never experience stress. They operate on a consistent performance basis with minimal operational risk. Research shows they take less sick leave, and collaborate more effectively. Organizations with a large number of employees in this region have more focused, agile and engaged teams. In a recent study, this group accounted for 14% of employees surveyed.

Second Group:

Employees in this category feel stressed "sometimes". Without adequate rehabilitation they can be productive, persistent, moderate stressors but can impair focus, creativity and teamwork. Over time, this category can become a source of hidden performance risk, increasing the risk of breakups, strained relationships, and health problems. This category generally comprises about 41% of the workforce.

Third group:

This situation represents a crisis zone where stress is persistent or so severe that it can affect workers chronically, significantly increasing risk. Employees report feeling stressed "often" or "all the time." Compared to their low-stress peers, workers in this region exhibit significantly more negative attitudes: eight times more sick days, 3.7 times more likely to stay sick, four times more likely to quit, 11 times more likely to make compliance errors (an important aspect of workplace safety), and 2.5 times more likely to report health disputes. Co-workers: This group comprises about 45% of the workforce.

After identifying areas of workforce stress, companies can analyze how these areas relate to existing operational data, such as revenue, noncompliance, and customer satisfaction. This involves comparing samples to see if departments with higher levels of stress experience more defects or lower customer ratings. The goal is to determine whether greater stress is concentrated in areas associated with key business outcomes and whether this stress is associated with increased risk or decreased performance. It provides an in-depth understanding of the costs of workplace stress and areas that require intervention.

Practical Application: Building Resilience

A multinational client successfully applied the Stress Risk Score framework to assess how different levels of stress relate to resilience in an organization fragmented by department and region. After administering the initial stress survey, the client administers a follow-up survey that asks questions such as, "How confident are you in your ability to manage stress effectively?" To evaluate the tensile elasticity. Resilience analysis helps understand employees' ability to recover and maintain performance under stress, particularly by providing an assessment of readiness for future risk and leadership roles.

The company discovered that managers also showed high resilience despite facing significant stress. It emphasizes the importance of equipping future leaders with stress management skills. The survey also identified company-wide risk areas, such as chronic absenteeism, reduced productivity and lack of confidence in managing stress. These insights were shared in leadership meetings, leading to strategic interventions such as scheduled movement breaks and healthy habit-building campaigns. These initiatives demonstrated significantly higher engagement than previous wellness efforts, with 54% of interventions successfully reducing immediate stress. Based on these findings, a joint habituation program was designed, tailored to each region and department, and a central leaderboard was created to encourage participation in these stress reduction programs.

Formalizing stress in risk management

To achieve effective management, stress management needs to involve the entire organization as a core responsibility. To overcome this risk, it is important that stress management is not the responsibility of a small department, but becomes a core function of the entire company.

This means that:

• The company should incorporate stress into its formal risk management system (i.e. the official way of managing risks).
• As the company's owners and senior executives (the board and leadership) sit down to assess financial and business risks, stress risk should also be regularly discussed, reported on, and decided upon.
• Companies that want to successfully solve this problem combine three key areas: H.R. (Employee Management Department), Finance (Department that keeps accounts of money), Risk Management

These teams work together to reduce the risk of stress by breaking down old barriers. HR understands employees well, and finance empowers them with data.

The benefit of this collaboration is that companies can better see why people are taking time off, where performance is slipping, and which employees are about to quit – all early warning signs. In this way, financial and operational risks as well as risk of stress can be properly assessed at the leadership level.

For example, a global commercial law firm has integrated mental health and stress into its wider risk management framework, in accordance with ISO 45003, the global standard for managing mental health and burnout in the workplace. The firm created leading and lagging indicators, collected data from insurers and brokers, and linked them to cost and performance metrics. This enabled him to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of existing mental health interventions. This evidence-based approach enabled more targeted action, promoted psychological well-being (an important aspect of workplace safety), and provided a strong, multidisciplinary rationale for sustainable investment in mental health.

Building organizational resilience is not just program implementation. It involves embedding an integrated system into how organizations lead, manage and develop. This requires a shared commitment: employees need support to develop sustainable healthy habits, while organizations need to take responsibility for creating an environment that reduces stress and promotes psychological well-being. Regular use of workplace stress data is critical to re-evaluating policies, practices and cultural norms to prevent employee stress from becoming a chronic and costly concern. By embedding resilience into the fabric of an organization, leaders can reduce the likelihood of disruption, protect the health of their workforce, and unlock a long-term competitive advantage. This holistic approach to managing workplace stress demands is a strategic move for any forward-thinking organization.

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