Stress strikes at all levels of management
Dated: 03/11/2011
A recent article in Management Today discusses how the Group CEO of Lloyds Banking Group has announced he is taking six weeks off work to recover from ‘stress related fatigue’. Here, Andrew Kinder, Vice Chair of the UK EAPA and Chief Psychologist at Atos Healthcare, discusses how organisations can best manage this type of situation.
It is not surprising, perhaps, to think that someone in his position will be under considerable pressure especially as he has reportedly cut 45,000 jobs across the Group and spearheaded a major turnaround for the company.
Yet, it's also possible that many will feel less than sympathetic given his large pay packet and supportive employer who was giving him the time away to recover; many employees will wish their own employer was able to provide much more support for them when they face a similar predicament.
This case does highlight that all levels of management, including the boss, are susceptible to experiencing ‘stress’ or ‘distress’ when pressure mounts over significant lengths of time and depletes an individual's ability to cope. Hopefully the Group CEO at Lloyds will have access to a good EAP where quality counselling and support is freely available to build up his coping resources and speed him back to work.
One wonders whether the need for such support could have been identified at an earlier stage to avoid such an absence, though? Surely this is one of the objectives of an EAP? Unfortunately, as highlighted by the recent study released by the CIPD, ‘stress’ is now the number one cause of sickness absence. So in reality there has never been a more important time to help both employers and employees to help tackle ‘stress at work'.
