MANAGING WORKPLACE STRESS - A CANADIAN DELPHI STUDY AMONG HUMAN-RESOURCE MANAGERS

The human and financial costs of stress in the workplace have been ext ensively documented in the literature. The present study used a two-ro und Delphi methodology with 17 human resource managers from 17 medium- sized and large Canadian organizations. The main purposes of the study were to predict future policy and programme directions as well as exp ected benefits and constraints on organizations during the 1990s. This panel of experts predicted even greater stress in the workplace in la rge part due to greater (global) competition and greater resource cons traints on organizations for programmes and services for their employe es as well as management resistance to such directions. Organizations will be challenged to identify cost effective means to prevent or, at least, to ameliorate stress. Several practical ideas were generated by the panel for organizations to consider.