Stress Survey

Survey on over 4000 Job Seekers
Almost half of the respondents (46%) chose flexible working as the benefit they would most look for in their next job, with only 1 in 14 (7%) choosing gym membership and 1 in 10 (10%) opting for a company car;
A third of them would prefer the opportunity to work flexible hours rather than receive £1,000 more pay per year;
7 in 10 (68%) jobseekers would like the chance to work more flexibly when necessary;
8 in 10 (77%) parents with children under 6 said that work-life balance is an important factor in deciding whether to apply for a new job; and
six out of ten workers view work-life balance as an important factor in assessing a potential new job.
Less than 2 in 10 (18%) job-seekers would happily work much longer hours for more money
4 in 10 (43%) men chose flexible working as the benefit they would most look for in a new job, compared with just 13% who would look for company car and only 7% who would look for gym membership
45% of undergraduates or recent graduates would prefer flexibility in hours to a company car (14%) or gym membership (4%)
Nearly a quarter (24%) of managers/ directors said that work-life balance was an extremely important factor in deciding whether to apply for a new job
4 in 10 (37%) women chose flexible working over £1000 more pay per year, compared to 3 in 10 (27%) men

Failing is part of Life

Some Stress Causes

Environmental stresses
· Crowding and invasion of personal space
· Insufficient working and living space
· Noise
· Dirty or untidy conditions
· Pollution
· A badly organised or run down environment
Chemical and nutritional stresses
· Caffeine:
· Bursts of sugar from sweets or chocolate:
· Too much salt
· An unbalanced or unhealthy diet.
· If you are obese, this causes physical stress on your internal organs and emotional stress as your view of yourself declines.
Lifestyle and job stress
· physically unfit
· too much or too little work
· having to perform beyond your perceived abilities
· having to overcome unnecessary obstacles
· time pressures and deadlines
· keeping up with new developments
· changes in procedures and policies
· lack of relevant information, support and advice
· lack of clear objectives
· unclear expectations of your role from your boss or colleagues
· responsibility for people, budgets or equipment
· career development stress:
o under-promotion, frustration and boredom with current role
o over-promotion beyond abilities
o lack of a clear plan for career development
o lack of opportunity
o lack of job security

Stress from your organisation or your clients:
· pressures from your boss
· interference in your work
· demands from clients
· disruptions to work plans
· the telephone!

Personal and family stresses:
· financial problems
· relationship problems
· ill-health
· family changes such as birth, death, marriage or divorce.

Fatigue and Overwork

You can get into a vicious circle of stress, which causes you to hurry jobs and do them badly. This under-performance causes feelings of frustration and failure, which causes more stress, which causes more hurry and less success, and so on.

If you do not manage long term stress effectively, it can lead to long term fatigue, failure and one of the forms of physical or mental ill-health

Stress Solution

Know where your're going

I've been on holidays from work over the last two weeks. I purposely did not organise my life over that time. It has been a lesson on a cause of stress.
Many times we can get stressed because we don't really know what we want to achieve. We engage in a purposeless manner. However, at a subconscious level we may have expectations. Drifting consciously may not satisfy this internal yearning. When we do this we can have "stress on tap".
So, knowing where you're going can be a great stress eliminator

Keep doing the same!

Working with people who are in a state of need or support is always interesting. As a person on the staff, I find we generally present ourselves as people with the correct and best answer for the lives of those we "serve". For us that is a source of stress as addicts and homeless people never follow the straight line we always seem to offer them.
The other side of the equation is that when we look at the behaviour of our clients and seek answers to why they don't seem to respond to the "great work" we're doing, I think we find some enlightening learning for ourselves. Don't we do the same in many areas of our own lives?
I find it interesting to stand back, in a safe place, and put my own house in order before approaching others.
It's amazing how much weight this takes off my shoulders. So now, i have dedicated a time where I meditate daily.

Holding on to Stress

For some of us, Stress is a tool we conveniently hold on to for our own benefit. Many times it is just not convenient to let go!
Given this, there is a multitude of solutions we can purchase without ever having made the decision to really deal with the source of our stress. These give brief respite and if they are fashionable, we can talk with authority about them.
How do i know if I'm fooling myself? Simply watch your behaviour. It has always intrigued me around Christmas time (a time of huge partying in Ireland) when magazine articles and tv programmes begin to show women how to detox to fit the party dress - so that they can then get totally and utterly drunk. Does this not equate to self abuse?
Letting go of stress is an attitude change which affects every aspect of life

Mis-using the rational mind

Without doubt the logical thinking mind has it's place in what we do. Perhaps we westerners beleive that it has to be used in every occasion. Do we not end up using it in places where it doesn't really fit? For many years I used it as the only tool to deal with my emotions. It just didn't work. I became very good at living in my head, and, as a consequence, at frustrating many of my natural abilities