How much does workplace stress cost?

Well it depends.

It depends on what 'cost' you're talking about do you mean to the individual, to the business or to the UK economy as a whole?
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Just in case you're really not sure here's all three!

The Individual:
The individual cost of workplace stress can be catastrophic.

I'm talking - developing severe and horrific physical and mental health complications which may leave the individual out of action for weeks, months and even years.

Most people are aware of the mental health costs (and if you're not it's usually depression & anxiety, although it has been linked to things like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia...).

But, more recently research into physical illnesses has shown clear causal links between stress and things like cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

More often than not, because our brains and bodies are linked you'll usually have a combination of both - sorry!
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The Organisation:

When employees are not in work, businesses suffer.

Other employees need to pick up the slack, you need to pay someone else to 'temp' and things just don't run as efficiently as they did when the individual was in work.

Even when they were stressed out and in work running at half capacity your employee who knows their job would be more beneficial to your organisation than someone else covering their role.

However, if you've got stressed out team members their behaviour, negativity and general attitude will seep into your non stressed members and bring the whole departments productivity rates down.

There's evidence which suggests between 60% and 85% of all workplace accidents and injuries are caused by stress, depression and anxiety.

In total 37% of workplace ill health was due to stress and this accounted for 45% of all workdays lost.​

​​The Economy:

An individual who is struggling from workplace stress, depression, or anxiety will be less productive than one who isn't.

​Simply, because of the way our brains are effected.

​The ability to carry out 'higher order cognitive functions' (thinking, processing and recalling information) is significantly impaired.
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Currently productivity levels in the UK are shocking (and if you didn't know this it really, really is).

One study last year showed that if we replaced all our workers with German's they'd come in do the same amount of work while taking half a day off on Thursday and chilling at home all day Friday.

Ouch!

Workplace stress, depression, and anxiety is estimated to cost the UK economy around 6.4 billion pounds each year, and if we only added 1% to our productivity levels then within a decade there would be an extra £250 billion knocking around in the UK.

That's a phenomenal amount of money.

Imagine what we could do with that money.

The NHS 'black hole' is only 22 billion.

We'd be able to pay for that with loads to invest in infrastructure, education, social services, the police force...

Reducing workplace stress is by far the quickest and easiest way to get the country back on track.

Wan't the headline stats?

Grab our latest infographic.

Just don't forget to take it to your next budget meeting!

Have a fabulous day & catch up with you soon - Katie
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p.s. if you happen to be the one stressed out at work there's some super simple things you can do to help yourself out all packed together nicely in our free 'How To Survive Your 9-5' mini guide.
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>>DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY HERE<<