The United Nations declares workplace stress to be a worldwide epidemic. In the United States alone, 46 percent of workers report that their job is very stressful. This adds up to a million stress related workplace absences each day.

Individual stress-control techniques are important. Meditation, soothing music, biofeedback and other techniques work well to help people cope with the stress of our modern workplace.

The real solution, however, is to recognize that stress control is a leadership responsibility. Leaders and managers can do more to control stress than all of the individual stress-relief techniques combined.

Leaders who implement stress-control strategies see the results in reduced absenteeism, medical costs, health care insurance expenses, workers comp payments, accidents, complaints and so on. The following 13 stress-control strategies minimize costs such as these making productivity soar. The workplace is improved. Employees and their families are happier. Business owners make more money.

Management can control stress by:

• Eliminating unreasonable expectations

• Positioning people in jobs that use their skills and abilities

• Adjusting pay for the level of responsibility assigned to individuals

• Correcting vague and arbitrary promotion policies

• Including employees in making decisions that affect their jobs

• Avoiding excessive overtime, even that with additional compensation

• Distributing unpleasant tasks fairly

• Enforcing policies equally throughout the organization, from top to bottom

• Implementing problem-solving strategies and acceptable mediation of conflicts

• Using family stress control strategies to minimize the impact of family separation caused by travel or long office hours

• Demonstrating concern for employee welfare

• Eliminating or minimizing intolerable conditions such as temperature, hazards, noise, light and odors

It is difficult to remove some of these stressors when the competition is attacking your company or when you are faced with unfavorable economic conditions, but this challenge is just as important as anything else facing those who wear the mantle of leadership. Making all of these changes can seem overwhelming. However, you can make an impact by selecting a single strategy and making a plan to improve it.

Just as corporate leaders are responsible for maximizing performance and increasing net profits, they are also responsible for controlling stressors that affect the bottom line.