Recent research shows that there are increasing levels of stress experienced in the workforce.
Not surprising perhaps at a time of downsizing, but much of this stress is experienced by people who have survived downsizing and whose individual performance and the business performance of their employer is going well. Much of it is because of the changing experience of individuals particularly in a service or knowledge economy. We are asking people to give so much more of themselves because in these knowledge or service economies they have become part of the product that we are selling. We, managers, have also taken people through some fundamental changes in the last decade - flattening organisations, taking away career paths, changing the psychological contract by removing job security. As early as 1989 the American management guru, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, talked about the changes that the workforce would have to face long before the recession took place in this country.