The Quebec Occupational Health and Safety Research Institute (IRSST) has just published a research report on the strategic approach to preventing occupational stress, an important issue since 30.8% of Canadians workers declare that most of their working days are considerably or extremely stressful.

The stress at work is related to several problems of workers’ health, low job satisfaction and a reduced productivity. These negative consequences for employees affect the success of organisations and their competitive edge in the marketplace. Even if the employer cannot protect employees from the sources of stress arising in their private lives, he can protect them from sources of stress emerging in the workplace. Given the scale of the problem and the costs associated with stress in the workplace, a number of organisations would like to implement measures with a view to either training individuals to cope better with stress or reducing the sources of stress in the work environment.

This research project has two main objectives:

The study published by the IRSST demonstrates that the interventions targeting the reduction of the risks to the source tend to decrease the constraints of the working environment.