Causes of stress in the workplace.

The six areas behind workplace stress.

The HSE Management Standards are one of the most widely used frameworks for work-related stress. They describe six areas of work that, if not managed well, lead to stress, lower productivity and more sickness absence.

The top 10 causes of stress in the workplace.

1. 01
   Too much work. More tasks than time, unrealistic deadlines, constant urgency.
2. 02
   Little control. No say over pace, order or method of work.
3. 03
   Poor manager support. No help when problems appear, no feedback, no recognition.
4. 04
   Conflict and unacceptable behavior. Bullying, harassment, rudeness or unresolved disputes.
5. 05
   Unclear roles. Not knowing what is expected, or getting conflicting demands.
6. 06
   Badly managed change. Reorganizations and new systems announced with little explanation.
7. 07
   Long hours. Regular overtime that leaves no time to recover.
8. 08
   Job insecurity. Fear of redundancy, contract uncertainty, worry about being replaced.
9. 09
   Constant interruptions. Meetings, messages and switching between tasks all day.
10. 10
    Work invading private time. Being expected to answer outside working hours.

Workload: the most common cause.

Too much work is the cause people name most often, and it rarely comes from one big task. It builds from many small additions: one more project, one more meeting, one more tool. Because each addition seems reasonable, nobody notices the total until people are exhausted. The fix is to look at the total, by team, and remove work, not just reorganize it.

Control and support.

High demands are easier to handle when people have control over how they meet them and support when they get stuck. Research on work stress has shown this for decades: the most stressful jobs combine heavy demands with little control and little support. That is why the same workload can be manageable in one team and harmful in another.

The manager's role in workplace stress.

Managers sit at the point where most causes of stress meet. They decide how work is distributed, whether priorities are clear, how conflict is handled and whether people can raise problems. A manager who holds regular one-to-ones, notices when someone is struggling and removes work when a team is full prevents more stress than any wellbeing program. Managers also need support themselves: many are under the same pressures as their teams, with less time to recover.

Remote and hybrid work.

Remote and hybrid work change which causes matter most. Commuting stress falls, but isolation, unclear priorities and blurred boundaries between work and home rise. People can feel they must prove they are working by answering quickly and staying online late. Clear agreements on response times, regular one-to-ones on video and written priorities reduce these new causes.

Prevention before cure.

Fixing causes is cheaper than treating effects. Every dollar or euro spent reducing workload, clarifying roles or training managers prevents absence, turnover and errors later. Start with the causes your data shows, act on one or two, and measure again.

Bringing it together.

Find the causes team by team, fix the one or two that matter most and measure again.

Newer causes of workplace stress.

Two causes have grown in recent years. The first is digital overload: constant messages, video calls and availability that blur the end of the working day. The second is AI-driven change. In a 2024 survey by the Upwork Research Institute, 77% of employees who used AI said it had added to their workload. Both are covered in technostress and AI fatigue.

Which groups are most exposed?

Some roles face more of these causes at once. Frontline and service roles often combine high demands with little control. Middle managers carry pressure from above and below with limited authority. People in roles that are being automated face insecurity and change together. New hires face unclear roles and limited support. Looking at causes by role and team, not only company-wide, shows where to act first.

How to spot the causes in your organization.

Several signals in the same team usually point to one or two root causes.

What stress does to people and teams.

Short bursts of pressure can sharpen focus. Chronic stress does the opposite. It drains energy, disturbs sleep, narrows attention and makes people more irritable and less creative. Over months, unmanaged stress can lead to burnout, which the World Health Organization describes as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. For teams, the effects show up as more mistakes, more short absences, more conflict and more resignations.

The cost of workplace stress.

Stress shows up in costs the organization already pays: sickness absence, presenteeism (people at work but not working well), errors, conflict, turnover and the time managers spend firefighting. Because these costs sit in different budgets, they are easy to miss. Reading capacity scores next to absence and turnover by team makes the link visible and helps make the case for fixing causes rather than treating symptoms. See presenteeism.

What employers can change.

1. 01
   Measure by team. Find out which causes apply where, instead of guessing.
2. 02
   Reduce demands. Cut tasks, meetings and reports; plan work against the people available.
3. 03
   Increase control. Let teams decide how to reach agreed goals.
4. 04
   Train managers. Regular one-to-ones, early conversations about workload.
5. 05
   Act on behavior. Clear rules and quick action on bullying and harassment.
6. 06
   Clarify roles. Written priorities and one owner per decision.
7. 07
   Explain change. Why, what, when and what stays the same.
8. 08
   Protect recovery. Leave taken, breaks respected, no replies expected after hours.

An example from practice.

Take a customer service team where energy scores fell over two quarters. The obvious explanation was workload. Looking closer, the team's volume was stable, but a new ticketing system and an AI assistant had been introduced together, with no training time, and the team lead had been moved to a project. The causes were change, support and control, not volume. The fix was a training week, a temporary lead and a rule that new tools arrive one at a time. Energy recovered within one pulse cycle. The example is illustrative, but the lesson is general: measure first, then fix the actual cause.

The lesson.

Measure first, then fix the actual cause, one team at a time.

Choosing where to start.

When several causes appear at once, start where the effect is largest and the fix is fastest. Workload relief in an overloaded team often helps within weeks. Role clarity can be fixed in a single planning session. Culture and relationship problems take longer and need sustained attention from leaders. Pick one quick fix and one longer-term change, tell the team what you are doing, and measure again at the next pulse.

What individuals can do.

Individuals cannot fix badly designed work alone, but they can reduce its impact: list your tasks and ask your manager which matter most, set boundaries on availability, take real breaks, and talk early when workload becomes unmanageable. See how to manage stress at work for practical steps.

Measuring stress risk by team.

Stress causes differ by team, so company-wide averages hide the problem. Ask people regularly about workload, control, support and their energy and recovery, and read the answers by team. thrive research shows how much capacity matters: the share of people who did not feel regularly overwhelmed rose from 15% in the lowest-scoring tenth to 98% in the highest-scoring tenth. In Germany, this kind of assessment is part of the legally required Gefährdungsbeurteilung psychischer Belastung.