Globally, workplace stress is on the increase. This has emerged from the findings of a worldwide study undertaken by the Grant Thornton consultancy.

The research indicates that more than half of the world's private business owners (56 percent) believe that stress in the office has increased in the past year.

Data from the global business advisory firm's annual International Business Report (IBR) focusing on workplace stress covers the opinions of over 7 400 business owners across 36 economies.

The IBR 2010 survey on workplace stress indicated that a heavy workload is the fourth biggest cause of office pressure.

The three most common causes of workplace stress across the world are the current economic climate with 38 percent of respondents worldwide citing this as one of their major causes of stress, followed by pressure on cash flow (26 percent) and competitor activities (21 percent).

"We acknowledge the greater pressure our employees are facing, particularly in terms of the heightened pressures attributable to the economic crisis as well as the increased demands on work-life balance," says David Reuben, head of Assurance at Grant Thornton Johannesburg.

"We've made some significant strides within our own business to address issues of stress and hopefully minimise the detrimental aspects of such pressure for our staff."

Grant Thornton views employees as an integral part of the business's success. Highly regarded professionals are valued for the wealth of skilled experience they bring to the firm and its clients.

"We also realise that today's working environment is very demanding and that it also needs to be responsive to changes in circumstances, in order for us to retain the best staff in a healthy office culture," says Reuben.

Balancing the demands of work and family life is, however, not always easy.

About 52 percent of Grant Thornton's partners in their Johannesburg office are female and many of them have young children.

"To alleviate the stress of this balancing act, the firm offers flexible working hours for female partners and working mothers," Reuben says.

Offering flexible working conditions extends further than just to the firm's female staff.

"Flexible working arrangements have been put in place by many divisions, permitting staff to arrive at work at a time convenient to them which allows people to spend more time being productive, at home and at work, and less time in the traffic," says Reuben.

A strong support network and offering staff someone to talk to also helps to alleviate pent up tension.

At Grant Thornton, all staff have access to independent and confidential counselling and advice through the group's national Be Well programme, which is also made available to immediate family members of staff.

The programme helps employees to deal with everyday situations, workplace stress concerns, relationships, addictions and trauma.

Teambuilding and other internal events work well to boost office collaboration.

"We try to foster social spirit among office colleagues because this makes the working environment more collegial; a vital aspect for us," adds Reuben.

Overall, monitoring workplace pressures needs to be a constant focus. It's not something that can be switched on and off.

"Continued and unabated stress in the office is extremely damaging to a convivial working environment and our continued attention to this goes part of the way to alleviating the harmful effects," Reuben concludes.

For more information contact David Reuben at dreuben@gt.co.za.