KEVIN HUME Consultancy

In dealing with stress levels employers and managers have their own extra sources of potential stress in dealing with the stress levels of those for whom in the workplace they are responsible. Under common law principles and more particularly, occupational health and safety legislation, employers have what is called 'a duty of care' for their employees requiring them to provide a safe and healthy workplace.

One level of complication for management is what is known as the Eggshell Skull Principle. This means that some workers can take incredible levels of stress, while others would be affected more easily, and an employer should and legally can not attempt to 'screen out' the latter, but must work with them to reduce stress.

Stress is increasingly regarded as any other illness or injury and is becoming an increasingly worrisome source of management concern not least because of the potential for complaint by an employee on the grounds of it causing disability or in experiencing consequent disability discrimination.

As stress levels in the workplace rise so to has our appetite for claims for compensation and for litigation as a remedy for such complaints. Stress claims in Australia have risen from 473 in 1991/2 costing $5.4 million to 1738 in 1995/96 at a cost of $29.7 million. The past five years have seen those stress claims and payments ballooning even further with no end in sight according to figures gathered from state WorkCover bodies around Australia . National Occupational Health and Safety Commission figures show that while back injuries were more common, stress-related claims were more costly - $13,000 per claim compared with $6,700 for backs. Those with stress-related claims also had longer off work - an average of 17.2 weeks, compared with 10.6 weeks for a back injury.

In 1994 the federal Minister for Industrial Relations estimated the cost of occupational stress to be around $30 million in what was one of the first attempts at officially quantifying stress costs in Aussie dollar terms. The costs now run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

'Sometimes you forget what's important in life. The clarity of mind I get from workplace meditation now has given me a fresh sense of purpose. And helped make a few changes where they were really needed. And I'm more focused at work as well. Much more even-keel about things.' Carlo Braumann, architect & design consultant, Sydney.