Stress Awareness Day

On National Stress Awareness Day, employee benefits specialist Secondsight is calling on employers across the UK to acknowledge the stress their staff may be experiencing, as opposed to feeding it.

Morag Livingston, group risk and healthcare manager at Secondsight, thinks that greater emphasis should be placed on today’s employees – to support them with stress.

With increasing recognition that financial issues can often be linked to stress, some employers are going further and offering employees access to financial education in the workplace. Where this may not be possible, or not yet considered as an employee benefit option, Morag Livingston believes employers should focus on Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs). These are intended to help employees deal with personal problems that might adversely impact their work performance, health and wellbeing. She comments:

“I don’t believe that enough of today’s employers use – let alone recognise the value of – EAPs. Greater emphasis should be placed on promoting them in the workplace, because they can help to alleviate stress.”

“For employers, I’d argue that a poster on the office kitchen wall is simply not enough; instead staff should be made aware via a wide and varying range of communications by their employer.

“When a staff member needs to fall back on the EAP, they are likely to be in their home environment and a quick reminder, via an app as an example, is far more likely to be used.”

Read the rest of the article, as featured on HR News here.