Workplace stress is the physical, emotional, behavioural, and mental strain caused by the demands of work, including our responsibilities, our workload, our role, and our job design. Stress can be caused by a number of factors, both inside and outside of the workplace in our personal lives. However, regardless of whether stress is caused by personal or professional influences, EAP support can help employees manage their stressors and overcome their challenges.
Safe Work Australia have reported that stress-related mental health claims (MHC) are growing, accounting for 11% of all MHCs. While that number might seem small, Safe Work Australia says it’s grown by 123% over the past decade. Learning to recognise workplace stress early and accessing support through healthy coping strategies, managers or an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) can prevent stress from developing into burnout or psychological injury.
In this guide, we’ll explore the impacts of stress on our mind and on our body. We’ll also explore what causes workplace stress, common symptoms, and how employees can manage their stress with some useful and easy to implement strategies. Finally, we’ll explore the positive impact of early intervention, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) support, and how EAP can help staff overcome stress and other mental health-related challenges.
Workplace stress at a Glance
Reviewed by Marylise Talbot, Executive Director of Digital, on 3 August 2026.
Recognise workplace stress early. Identifying the signs and symptoms early can help prevent burnout, psychological injury and long-term impacts on wellbeing and performance.
Manage stress proactively. Healthy boundaries, effective time management, regular breaks, mindfulness and early support all help employees build resilience and cope with workplace pressures.
Support creates healthier workplaces. Organisations that address psychosocial hazards, conduct risk assessments and provide Employee Assistance Program (EAP) support foster safer, healthier and more productive workplaces.
What Is Psychological Stress in the Workplace?
Psychological stress in the workplace can be defined as the cognitive, physical and emotional exhaustion caused by work demands and pressures. When an employee is faced with these pressures, which are mostly psychosocial hazards, including job control, job demands, and job design, they are often unable to cope.
Low levels of stress can help us feel more motivated and engaged, making small amounts of stress can be beneficial. However, if stress becomes overwhelming, that’s when support is necessitated.
Once stress peaks, it can lead to a physical and cognitive response, including muscle tension, headaches, fatigue, anxiety, and burnout, According to the Mayo Clinic. Some of the reasons why employees may experience workplace psychological stress include:
- Lack of resources
- Unrealistic deadlines
- Poor support from colleagues and managers
- Ambiguous tasks
- Unrealistic responsibilities and pressures
- Micromanagement and low job control
Job Demands
Job demands refer to what is expected of you in your workplace. Excessive workloads, long hours, and compounding pressures to meet or exceed tight or unrealistic deadlines can significantly increase workplace stress.
Lack of Control
Lack of control is when you may have little to no control over your job. This could be micromanagement and/or over-the-top surveillance, leading to frustration, reduced confidence, overwhelm, and stress.
Poor Support
Poor support is when you’re inadequately supported in your job role. This may come from leadership or colleagues, such as high workloads with little input or help, increasing workplace stress.
Workplace Relationships
Conflict at work, bullying, harassment, or ongoing distrust within a team can lead to undue stress and adverse emotional outcomes, especially when concerns aren’t addressed early.
Lack of Role Clarity
Lack of role clarity is about feeling unsure about your position, tasks, responsibilities, and what is expected of you. Working hard without certainty can create ongoing stress.
Poor Communication
When communication between teams, colleagues, or managers is limited or unclear, people miss guidance and feedback. This may show up as unclear instructions, jargon, or a lack of acknowledgement.
Organisational Change
Change can be stressful when people feel uncertain about their role, observe redundancies, or receive inadequate communication. Clear updates and support can reduce this impact.
Low Recognition
Putting in significant effort and delivering high-quality work without recognition can feel discouraging and stressful, prompting people to question expectations and outcomes.
Poor Organisational
Justice When decisions feel biased, unfair, or poorly explained — or when someone feels excluded or disrespected without reason — trust can erode, leading to frustration and stress.
Characteristics of a Healthy Workplace vs a High-Stress Workplace
Creating a psychologically healthy workplace starts with understanding what contributes to workplace stress. While healthy workplaces proactively manage psychosocial hazards and support employee wellbeing, high-stress workplaces often expose employees to ongoing pressures that increase the risk of burnout, absenteeism and psychological injury. The comparison below highlights some of the key differences.
| Healthy Workplace | High-Stress Workplace |
|---|---|
| Realistic workloads and achievable deadlines | Excessive workloads and constant pressure |
| Clear roles, expectations and responsibilities | Ambiguous roles and unclear priorities |
| Supportive leaders who regularly check in with employees | Limited manager support and poor communication |
| Employees have autonomy, job control and healthy work-life boundaries | Micromanagement, low job control and difficulty disconnecting from work |
| Access to EAP support, wellbeing resources and psychologically safe practices | Employees delay seeking help, increasing the risk of burnout and psychological injury |
What Is Workplace Stress Management?
Workplace stress management is the process of identifying, reducing and preventing workplace stress through early intervention, practical strategies, healthy boundaries and organisational support. The following are three workplace stress management techniques that employees can use to minimise workplace stress:
Learning to say ‘no’ to extra tasks when an employee’s workload is too full, and delegating tasks to others.
Disconnecting from work by deciding to not check emails outside of work and disabling notifications from work-based messaging platforms.
Defining work hours helps to set boundaries, including putting a laptop away when the day is done. These hours could be outside of normal work hours as some workers prefer to work at home during later hours.
Learning how to prioritise and manage workload, enabling the employee to feel more in control and understand what’s a priority versus what is not – which can reduce stress.
Case study: Overcoming workplace stress
We all know someone who is overworked and tired but seems to be stuck in the same monotonous cycle. This can almost certainly lead to workplace psychological stress. Here is a scenario outlining a worker who was stressed and the techniques she used to manage her stress:
Alice is a middle manager at a FINTECH firm. She works very long hours, has a high workload, and unrealistic deadlines are causing her to have sleepless nights. She also feels tension in her muscles, frequent headaches, and she often feels like crying and her anxiety has worsened. Alice realised the stress was a result of her job demands. To manage her mental and physical responses, she began boundary setting, delegating tasks to others, and recognising her limits.
She also spoke to her manager and EAP and expressed that her stress is causing burnout. Her EAP provided key breathing techniques and self-care strategies (such as switching off after work and exercise). Her manager was also unaware that she was experiencing chronic stress and made the necessary adjustments to spread the workload to help offload the stress Alice was feeling. What resulted was a more manageable workload, reduced burnout, and more creativity and productivity. Alice even started to create more innovative work.
What Causes Workplace Stress?
The causes of workplace stress can be broken down into eight risk factors, all of which are psychosocial hazards. When an employee faces these risks, stress can become ongoing and cause significant employee burnout and result in absenteeism. Workplace conflict can also increase because it creates ongoing uncertainty, emotional exhaustion and reduced psychological safety.
Prevalence rates of workplace stress in Australia are growing with 34% of Australian employees saying their mental health has declined over the past six months, according to Foremind. Connectedly, Foremind states that more than 5 in 10 workers are stressed at work a lot of the time. The same research found workplace stress results in a 37% reduction in engagement.
Here is a list of the eight most common causes of workplace stress, reported by Health Direct:
- Long hours and heavy workload (job demands)
- Low level of control over work caused by poor communication
- Little support from managers and colleagues
- Lack of clarity, expectations and work standards
- Workplace conflict, bullying, and harassment
- Meagre recognition and reward such as feedback or development opportunities
- Poor change management implementation caused by communication and little support
- Unfair work processes and policies (organisational justice)
How Workplace Stress Affects Employees and Organisations
Workplace stress affects both employees and organisations. For employees, it can reduce concentration, productivity and morale while impacting mental health, physical wellbeing and workplace relationships. For organisations, unmanaged stress can contribute to absenteeism, presenteeism, lower engagement, higher staff turnover, workers’ compensation claims and a weaker workplace culture.
For Employees
Workplace stress can reduce concentration, productivity and morale while increasing the risk of anxiety, burnout, physical health issues and strained workplace relationships.
- productivity
- concentration
- morale
- mental health
- physical health
- relationships
For Organisations
For organisations, unmanaged workplace stress can increase absenteeism, presenteeism, staff turnover, workers’ compensation claims and reduce engagement, psychological safety and overall business performance.
- absenteeism
- presenteeism
- turnover
- psychological safety
- engagement
- workers compensation
- culture
- retention
- performance
Signs and Symptoms of Workplace Stress
Workplace stress can manifest in a number of different ways when an employee is faced with workplace psychosocial hazards or personal challenges outside of work. The symptoms, however, can be broken into four categories: physical, psychological, emotional, and behavioural. WorkSafe Victoria outlines the following symptoms for each category:
Behavioural
- Reduced work performance
- Withdrawal and isolation
- Impulsivity
- Difficulty sleeping
- Increased addictive behaviours
- Low workplace engagement
Physical
- Headaches
- Fatigue and tiredness
- Nausea and shortness of breath
- Slower reactions
- Sleep challenges
- Indigestion
Psychological
- Decision fatigue
- Forgetfulness
- Challenges with concentration and focus
- Memory lapses
- Increased rumination
- Panic attacks
Emotional
- Increased irritability
- Worry and anxiety
- Worthlessness
- Defensiveness
- Anger and mood swings
- Feelings of dread, and in some cases depression
1 in 5
Australians have taken an absence from work due to stress, anxiety and/or depression
Leaders can play an important role in spotting the signs of workplace stress and supporting staff to reduce burnout and absenteeism. UNSW reports that burnout can cost approximately $4,000 to $21,000 per employee, per year. Therefore, by identifying workplace stress through the signs and symptoms above, leaders can take measurable steps to support employees – through workload distribution, one-to-one check-in, supportive conversations, feedback, and their employee assistance program.
40%
Daily stress reported
x2
Workers compensation claims have doubled resulting in a $10 billion cost to the economy each year
24%
Of workplace wellbeing concerns supported by Converge are stress-related.
Converge Data
#2
Work-related issue employees seek support for from Converge is workplace stress
Converge Data
98,000+
Counselling appointments delivered in FY25 – many of which were for stress
Converge Data
Converge data is based on de-identified service utilisation across Converge International’s Employee Assistance Program and workplace wellbeing services during FY2025. Figures are aggregated and reported for informational purposes only.
14,000
Support cases delivered by Converge for ongoing personal stress
Your Workplace Stress Checklist
Below are a range of questions you should review to understand whether stress is an ongoing normality in your workplace. Use this checklist to understand where you need to make meaningful change, and whether more support is needed.
- Are employee complaints about stress increasing?
- Have you received mental health claims regarding stress?
- Has absenteeism and presenteeism increased?
- Has quality decreased and are mistakes more frequent?
- Have stress symptoms started to manifest in your workforce?
- Are leaders reporting higher stress levels within their team?
- Are job demands too high, do employees have enough job control, and does your workforce know their role and responsibilities?
- Finally, are there high levels of conflict, strained relationships, and poor communication?
Common Workplace Stressors and Prevention Strategies
Understanding what contributes to workplace stress is the first step towards preventing it. By identifying common workplace stressors early and implementing practical prevention strategies, both employees and employers can create a healthier, more productive and psychologically safer workplace.
| Common Workplace Stressors | Prevention Strategies |
|---|---|
| Excessive workload and unrealistic deadlines | Prioritise work, redistribute workloads and set realistic expectations. |
| Low job control | Increase employee autonomy and involve staff in decision-making. |
| Poor manager or peer support | Encourage regular check-ins, coaching and open communication through Manager Support. |
| Unclear roles and expectations | Clearly define responsibilities, objectives and performance expectations. |
| Workplace conflict or bullying | Address issues early through respectful conversations, clear workplace policies and Conflict Support. |
| Organisational change | Communicate openly, consult employees and provide wellbeing support throughout organisational change. |
| Poor work-life balance | Encourage healthy boundaries, flexible work where appropriate and regular breaks. |
| Lack of recognition | Provide regular feedback, recognition and development opportunities. |
| Psychosocial hazards | Conduct regular psychosocial risk assessments and implement appropriate control measures. |
| Ongoing high stress | Encourage early intervention through an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), Manager Support and professional counselling. |
How Can Employees Manage Workplace Stress
Managing workplace stress helps employees build resilience, improve wellbeing and maintain long-term performance. Equally, stress management better equips employees to cope with the demands of their work, while protecting their mental health and wellbeing. As such, there are a number of techniques an employee can use to minimise workplace stress, achieve a positive work-life balance, and cultivate healthy habits. These simple strategies include early intervention, mindfulness, boundary setting, and mastering time management. Here is a breakdown of those simple steps:
Time management
- Time blocking: Blocking time in a diary to make time for individual tasks can help improve focus and enable better time management. It can also prevent an overload of meetings which takes the employee away from priority tasks.
- Task prioritisation: To-do lists and ranking tasks from highest priority to least can help employees and leaders identify which tasks are most urgent and what can be de-prioritised. This can provide a sense of control of workload.
- Identifying stress triggers: Employees and leaders should identify what causes stress in their daily work schedule. When an employee knows their triggers, they’re able to understand the root cause of the stress symptoms. When these triggers occur, they can practice mindfulness, take micro-breaks, and talk to their manager and EAP about these triggers for better support.
Healthy boundaries
- Establishing healthy boundaries through disconnecting: To achieve a positive work-life balance, an employee must disconnect from work. They should establish set work hours (even if those hours are outside the typical 9 to 5), reduce notifications and checking emails outside of these hours, and protect their personal time.
- Utilise workplace support: If an employee has access to an Employee Assistance Program, which all organisations should provide, a staff member can speak with a qualified expert about their stress triggers, seek early intervention, and learn ways to manage their stress better. Employees can also use digital wellbeing tools to monitor stress, access coping strategies and seek support earlier.
Daily relaxation
- Take micro-breaks: Stepping away from technology or the worksite for a few moments can help with focus, engagement and productivity. Employees should be encouraged to step away for 5 minutes to decompress and practice deep breathing and brief mindfulness. This is especially important when they encounter a stress trigger.
- Look after their physical health: Maintaining energy levels through a nutritious diet, a good sleep routine, hydration, and exercise can help to reduce stress. Equally, physical health and being energised can help with mental clarity. Employees should be encouraged to regularly exercise – a Converge Move Challenge can help here.
7,800+
appointments delivered by Converge for workplace stress
Creating a Stress Management Plan in the Workplace
Employers and leaders should actively build a workplace stress management plan to help prevent stress from impacting employees. While manageable levels of stress can improve focus, motivation and creativity, excessive stress can negatively affect employee wellbeing.
According to Work Safe Victoria, prolonged stress can have a “negative effect on employees’ health, safety, and wellbeing and can lead to psychological injury”. With this statement in mind, the best way that workplaces can manage stress is through identifying potential psychosocial hazards in their workplace, and work proactively to mitigate those risks.
Through a psychosocial risk assessment, you can understand what adverse outcomes are impacting your staff. Thereafter, you’re able to implement safeguards to prevent wellbeing challenges. Psychosocial hazards can increase stress. By monitoring and mitigating psychosocial risks, you can minimise workplace stress.
We must emphasise that for the best outcomes, you should always consult a trained psychosocial expert. At Converge, we offer comprehensive psychosocial risk assessment solutions. Get in touch to learn more.
Here’s how a psychosocial risk assessment works and informs a workplace stress management framework:
Identify psychosocial risks within the workplace: Start by understanding the risks present such as job demands, job control, and whether enough support is available.
Assess and evaluate the duration of said risks: If the risks are frequent, prolonged, and a part of the workplace culture, the severity of the risk can continue to increase.
Consult employees: Conduct focus groups and employee surveys to understand and determine the psychosocial hazards staff members face. Seek data anonymously to prevent fears of repercussions and use the data to evaluate what risks could be present.
Build control measures: Once you’ve identified what risks are present, build and implement control measures based on the survey and company data obtained. This could look like workplace culture reform, load sharing, and hiring more staff to manage workload.
Frequently review the control measures: Monitor if your control measures are working and if they’re effective. An example here is post organisational change; gather sentiment analysis post change to identify if communication was clear, wellbeing was prioritised, and if engagement has diminished.
How EAP Can Help with Building a Psychologically Safe and Healthy Workplace
Building a psychologically healthy workplace requires commitment across the entire organisation. While everyone has a role to play, employees also need accessible, professional support when challenges arise. This is where Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) can help. Through expert support, such as counselling and coaching, and early intervention employees can manage their stress better and thrive in the workplace, which ultimately leads to a more psychologically safe and healthy workplace.
At Converge, we see workplace stress as the second most frequent workplace issue. Over FY25, we saw almost 8,000 cases of employees reaching out for workplace stress support. Of these 8,000 cases, the top five reasons employees sought support were:
- Workload and time pressure
- Work-life balance and workplace satisfaction
- Lack of job control
- Managing mental health issues arising from workplace stress
We help employees manage workplace stress through proactive wellbeing resources, digital wellbeing technology, confidential counselling and expert coaching. Together, these services support prevention, early intervention, and long-term resilience. This is how we support staff with their stress management:
We provide staff with immediate, confidential access to support, which is delivered by over 2,000+ qualified and experienced clinicians. This helps underpin early intervention and prevent workplace stress from worsening.
We support managers and leaders through manager support and coaching. This service provides leaders with specialised coaching, guidance, and advice to help them identify signs of stress, and how they can better support their team.
EAP helps organisations manage psychosocial risks by providing a structured framework and comprehensive wellbeing reporting, so organisations understand the mental health challenges impacting their employees.
Crisis counselling and critical incident response can prevent stress-related outcomes from a potentially traumatic event. Similarly, when workplace stress becomes overwhelming, we provide urgent crisis counselling to help the staff member overcome their mental health crisis.
We provide an extensive bank of resources and digital wellbeing tools so employees can monitor, understand, and overcome workplace stress. This is housed in the Converge App and Employee Wellbeing Portal, which staff members can access from any device anytime, anywhere.
If you’re looking for an EAP, reach out today and learn more about our wellbeing solutions. We can support your people with all their wellbeing challenges, including stress.
Workplace Stress FAQs: Causes, Symptoms, Prevention and Support
What is workplace stress?
Workplace stress is the physical, emotional, psychological and behavioural response to excessive work demands, poor job design, low job control, workplace conflict or other psychosocial hazards that exceed an employee’s ability to cope.
What causes workplace stress?
Common causes include excessive workloads, unrealistic deadlines, poor management support, workplace conflict, low job control, unclear expectations, organisational change and unfair workplace processes.
What are the signs and symptoms of workplace stress?
Symptoms of workplace stress can include headaches, fatigue, anxiety, irritability, poor concentration, memory problems, sleep disturbances, reduced productivity, social withdrawal and burnout.
How can employees manage stress in the workplace?
Employees can manage workplace stress by setting healthy boundaries, prioritising tasks, improving time management, taking regular breaks, practising mindfulness, exercising regularly, speaking with their manager and accessing Employee Assistance Program (EAP) support.
How can employers reduce stress in the workplace?
Employers can reduce workplace stress by identifying psychosocial hazards, consulting employees, improving workload management, increasing manager support, implementing control measures and regularly reviewing workplace risks through psychosocial risk assessments.
What is a workplace stress management plan?
A workplace stress management plan is a structured approach that identifies workplace stress risks, implements preventative controls, supports employee wellbeing and regularly reviews whether those controls are effectively reducing psychosocial risks.
What is the difference between workplace stress and burnout?
Workplace stress is an ongoing response to work pressures, while burnout is a state of emotional, mental and physical exhaustion that can develop after prolonged or unmanaged workplace stress.
When should I seek help for workplace stress?
You should seek support if workplace stress begins affecting your mental health, physical health, relationships, sleep, work performance or daily life. Early intervention often prevents stress from becoming more severe.
Can an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) help with workplace stress?
Yes. An Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provides confidential counselling, coaching and wellbeing support to help employees manage workplace stress, build resilience, develop coping strategies and improve their overall wellbeing. Managers can also access support to better assist their teams.
What are psychosocial hazards in the workplace?
Psychosocial hazards are aspects of work that can negatively affect psychological health, including excessive job demands, low job control, poor support, bullying, role ambiguity, poor organisational change management and workplace conflict.
