According to a new study commissioned by Everest College, individuals report low pay as the biggest source of stress, followed by annoying co-workers as the second biggest cause of distress at work.
The researchers interviewed 898 adults over the phone, all of whom were over the age of 18. Of the participants, 11 percent reported that low pay was the biggest cause of stress in their lives. There was a slight gender difference between men and women, 14 percent of women reported most stress as a result of low pay, while this was reported to be the biggest cause of stress in 8 percent of men.
The study results reported that interpersonal relationships with co-workers were the second biggest cause of work place stress which was reported by 10 percent of participants. It has previously been found that if an individual is stressed with a particular element of their life or work that often relations with co-workers can become problematic, particularly when stress is said to be caused by pay packets. In times of stress and economic difficulty, the disparity in pay is related to the perceptions of effort and contribution to the company. Subsequently if one co-worker does not appear to be working as hard as others, social problems can arise.
Other causes of work place stress was cited as the commute to work and feeling over worked and under unreasonable pressures each accounted for in nine percent of participants reported stress levels.
Some of the results were encouraging for employers, only 4 percent of participants reported their biggest stressor was the fear of being fired and 26 percent of individuals reported that nothing about their work or jobs caused them stress, this was an increase of 5 percent on last year’s results.
This research is extremely useful as it indicates how employers could improve their employee’s satisfaction with work and make changes to reduce stress. However, further research could be conducted to establish exactly how these elements of work life cause stress in order to pin point specific targets for change.
