Stress in the workplace has emerged as significant and universal problem in terms of negative health, loss in productivity and higher attrition resulting in loss of trained and valuable employees. Presenteism is another big problem where employees are not contributing to their optimum potential. The expectations from the stakeholders continue to get more demanding making them impatient and vulnerable. The need of agile leadership and workforce has become all the more important now. It is high time to find a mechanism to address stress issues at organisational level to generate healthy profits without compromising the wellbeing, goodwill of their employees.
The popular myth that the individual employees are responsible for managing their own stress no more valid, latest research concludes that integrated stress management (systems approach) showed benefits both to individuals and organizations. While individuals benefit in terms of improved health, better engagement and performance. Organisations also gained in terms of reduced absenteeism, health compensation costs, workplace conflicts, healthy attrition, employee satisfaction etc. Stress Safety Net is a comprehensive strategic approach that will help identify the scope of primary, secondary and tertiary interventions in a given organisation. A road map is necessary for effective workplace interventions in handling stress to gain overall organisational effectiveness.