To help address this, SkillSoft is offering three courses via the demonstration area of its website to assist people in dealing with stress. The full courses will be available until the end of 2006. They can be accessed by anyone at any time without charge at the following url: www.skillsoft.com/EMEA/demo.asp

Kevin Young, Managing Director of SkillSoft EMEA explains: “Stress in the workplace is a major issue for businesses. Helping people to manage stress can have a positive effect on their effectiveness at work and reduce the number of stress-related absences. Non-managerial staff can benefit too; our research shows that they are almost as stressed as their bosses.”

More than half the managers surveyed can never imagine a stage in their life when they are completely stress-free and 58 per cent of managers think they probably spend most of their lives stressed in one way or another. Worryingly, almost 70 per cent of managers say they wake up in the night due to feelings of stress.

The major causes of management stress at work are:

1. Workload – 61.6 per cent

2. Deadlines – 50.3 per cent

3. Feeling undervalued - 38.9 per cent

4. Having to work longer hours than they should – 37.3 per cent

5. Having to take on other people’s work – 34.1 per cent

6. Lack of control over their day - 31.9 per cent

7. Targets - 30.3 per cent

8. Type of work – 30.3 per cent

9. Too many emails – 28.1 per cent

10. Organisational changes that impact on them and their job – 27 per cent

* respondents could pick more than one cause of stress

Top ten colleague irritations* :

1. Seeing other people not pulling their weight – 56.1 per cent

2. Bosses changing their minds about what they want you to do – 37.3 per cent

3. Lack of support from bosses – 29.7 per cent

4. Pressure from bosses – 28.6 per cent

5. Interruptions by bosses – 23.8 per cent

6. Feeling put-upon by bosses - 22.2 per cent

7. Lack of support from colleagues – 21.6 per cent

8. Bullying behaviour by bosses – 17.8 per cent

9. Feeling put-upon by colleagues – 11.4 per cent

10. Bullying behaviour by colleagues 9.2 per cent

* respondents could pick more than one colleague irritation