Missouri Department of Labor Says Stress Lowers Workplace Safety

Over the past few years, more and more has become known about the relationship of stress to a number of physical and mental health issues. For many people, the biggest source of stress in their lives is their jobs and that’s become sharply worse over the past three years due to the economy.

Not only are employees stressing out over losing their jobs or just being worried that they may lose their jobs, the employees still in the workplace are under more stress than ever. As many companies downsize, the remaining employees often must take on more duties and responsibilities than they had before. This can add a lot of stress but when you factor in the pressure of wondering if they might be the next head on the chopping block, it’s easy to see why stress-related illness could be on the rise.

Now the Missouri Department of Labor is saying stress is making the workplace less safe. Stress often leads to distraction and errors get made and accidents happen. Stress can also cause insomnia and sleep-deprived workers also make mistakes and are often unable to concentrate so productivity drops, as well.

In order to help, the department is hosting hour long stress-management seminars at the company’s location. They are encouraging employers to give them a call to schedule a session that will show them how to add stress management right into their safety initiatives on the job.

Department spokeswoman Amy Susan said, “We want to do it and we are committed to making it happen.”

Susan said the department became increasingly aware of the stress-safety link as statistics on stress-related worker’s comp claims rose up from 265 in 2008 to 326 in 2009. This 23% rise “is a concern” for the department.