Rhythm Connection - Corporate Job Stress

Recently, the 2000 annual “Attitudes In The American Workplace VI” Gallup Poll sponsored by the Marlin Company found that: 80% of workers feel stress on the job, nearly half say they need help in learning how to manage stress and 42% say their coworkers need such help.

• 14% of respondents had felt like striking a co-worker in the past year, but didn’t.
• 25% have felt like screaming or shouting because of job stress, 10% are concerned about an individual at work they fear could become violent.
• 9% are award of an assault or violent act in their workplace and 18% had experienced some sort of threat or verbal intimidation in the past year.

Americans Are Working Longer And Harder
A 1999 government report found that the number of hours worked increased 8% in one generation to an average 47 hrs/week with 20% working 49 hrs/week. U.S. workers put in more hours on the job than the labor force of any other industrial nation, where the trend has been just the opposite. According to an International Labor Organization Study, Americans put in the equivalent of an extra 40-hour work week in 2000 compared to ten years previously. Japan had the record until around 1995 but Americans now work almost a month more than the Japanese and three months more that the Germans. We are also working harder. In a 2001 survey, nearly 40% of workers described their office environment as “most like a real life survivor program”.

Absenteeism Due To Job Stress Has Escalated
According to a survey of 800,000 workers in over 300 companies, the number of employees calling in sick because of stress tripled from 1996 to 2000. An estimated one million workers are absent every day due to stress.