New trends in job design could create widespread mental health risks

Citation

(2001), "New trends in job design could create widespread mental health risks", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 25 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeit.2001.00325aab.005

New trends in job design could create widespread mental health risks

New trends in job design could create widespread mental health risks

Keywords: Job design, Job satisfaction, Stress

Trends in job design intended to improve productivity and efficiency could cause widespread mental health problems among UK employees, says a report on work-related stress from The Industrial Society, which urges the UK government to make guidance for employers on the links between job design and stress a priority.

New Work, New Stress was launched last autumn at the Labour Party Conference by The Industrial Society's chief executive, Will Hutton. It says that badly designed jobs which are repetitive and demanding, with low job control, for example, those in many call centres, are bad for our mental health. The pressure of the new economy is making such jobs increasingly likely.

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and subsequent regulations, employers have a statutory duty to safeguard the psychological health of their employees, but Pat McGuinness, author of the report, argues that current thinking on tackling workplace stress puts employers in a no-win situation. "Guidance on job design is key, but policy makers also need to rethink definitions and approaches to stress to take into account the wide range of risks at play in today's workplaces.

"Conventional ways of identifying and approaching stress are based on those for physical risk, but the differences between physical and psycho-social hazard, harm and risk are so great that they make a parallel approach unworkable. Employer initiatives that tackle stress in the same way as other occupational health issues will inevitably fail. This puts employers in a very difficult position when it comes to devising preventive strategies."

The report is critical of popular employer initiatives such as counselling or employee assistance programmes, lifestyle campaigns and stress management programmes. "What these responses, rare as they still are, have in common is their emphasis on the individual's responsibility for controlling stress-related illness", it says. Stress audits, which are increasingly common, are often too subjective to be of any real use.

Instead companies should consider the impact of organizational changes, concentrate on training managers to spot signs of serious job strain and deteriorating mental health before they become a problem, and encourage workplace cultures that do not see stress as a sign of weakness.

New Work, New Stress by Pat McGuinness is available from The Industrial Society on 0870 400 1000, price £10.00.

The Industrial Society can be found at http://www.indsoc.co.uk