Workplace stress has many causes, and you can’t avoid them all. But here’s something to consider: a survey suggests you’re more likely to feel stressed in a large company than a small one.
Office picture from Shutterstock
Business Insider reports on a survey of 20,000 people across 95 countries by serviced office firm Regus. The study found that in companies with less than 40 employees, 54 per cent of workers had high levels of stress. In companies with more than 250, that figure rose to 61 per cent.
The fact that more than half of us feel stressed in our jobs regardless of company size is disturbing. But if you are feeling the pressure, seems like moving to a smaller employer could help.
CHART: The Corporate Stress Load Is Getting Heavier With Many Aussies Losing Sleep [Business Insider]
Comments
3 responses to “Working For A Big Company Is More Stressful”
I found working as my own boss was way more stressful than working at this very large national company (40,000 employees) in which I now.
Having worked in varying capacities in small businesses for 10 years, and now in a business with 900 employees for the past 4 years, I find the opposite to be the case. I’ve felt much greater levels of stress in the small businesses than I have in the larger business. A big benefit of a bigger business is the number of people who can support you, whereas in the smaller business you’re often left more on your own to face issues. All comes down to personal experience and how you manage stress and interact with people I guess.
I find the most stressful thing about working for a large global software organisation is that all the development is done in parts of the world where labour is cheap. That usually means waiting for someone on the other side of the world to answer to an email, misunderstand the question/problem and come back with a response that is useless and then have to wait another day for them to read and respond to another email.
The really annoying thing about this is a lot of the times when there’s a software bug it’s something really easy to fix, like a missing semi-colon, but I’m not allowed to touch the code.
When I worked for a small company and found a bug, I’d just lean over the desk and say “hey Jim, you missed a semi-colon but I fixed it up for ya”. And Jim would say “Cheers for that mate” and nothing more than an hour would be lost.