Why are we all so stressed? And what can we do about it?

This post originally appeared as an opinion piece in TFN 11 May 2026 (Ilse Mackinnon and Amy Graham).
For more on staff wellbeing, job satisfaction and job security etc see the Voluntary Sector Workforce Survey 2025.

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, which prompted me to revisit one of the issues that stood out most strongly in our recent Voluntary Sector Workforce survey of over 1,300 voluntary sector workers: workplace stress.

The findings were sobering:

• More than half of staff reported experiencing high levels of stress on a regular basis.
• One in five have taken time off due to work-related stress in the last year – double the rate recorded a decade ago.
• High stress levels were seen across all roles, from frontline staff to management.
• Work-life balance has deteriorated over the last decade - only half of paid staff said they achieve a healthy balance between work and personal life.
• Many respondents spoke candidly about the negative impact stress was having on them, including exacerbating existing health problems.

The voluntary sector is far from alone in feeling this rise in pressure and stress. A quick online search will pull up dozens of articles discussing the current ‘stress epidemic’.

Data from the Health and Safety Executive and other robust sources show that reported stress levels rose dramatically during Covid.  What’s perhaps more surprising is that levels of work-related stress haven’t really come down since then and show little sign of returning to pre-pandemic norms.

Why is stress still so high?

Common reasons given for stress levels remaining at record levels include our increasingly ‘always on’ culture, current geopolitical instability, more heated and polarised political and social media worlds, economic uncertainty, and lingering post-Covid vulnerability.

On top of these universal factors the voluntary sector has some additional worries stirred into the mix, such as lower job security and low pay. In addition women, who make up the majority of the sector’s workforce, tend to experience higher levels of stress and anxiety than men.

Adding a further layer of complexity is the fact there is no clear dividing line between work-related stress and wider ‘life’ stress. This is particularly true in our sector, where over half of people work from home, and many work in organisations or support clients directly affected by the wider political or economic climate. It can be difficult for organisations and managers to know where their responsibility for supporting individual staff members begins and ends.

Impact of stress on colleagues and wider workplace

Stress isn’t just bad for the individual. According to the Health and Safety Executive, the signs of stress in workplaces can include higher staff turnover, more sickness absence, decreased performance, more arguments, and more complaints and grievances.

That makes it vital that organisations provide meaningful support, and that all staff know what support is available to them and feel that their employer genuinely has their back. And that’s why it’s a concern that only half of staff (51%) feel their workplace supports and prioritizes staff wellbeing, a figure that falls even further (to 48%) when we look at people with a physical or mental health condition.

The theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is ‘Action’, so I spoke to Amy Graham from our HR service to explore some practical steps that individuals can take to manage stress, and how organisations can better support staff wellbeing.

What can you do about it?

If you’re experiencing stress at work, you could have a conversation with your manager to explore potential solutions.

Here’s some tips to help you get the most out of this conversation.

• Be specific on what the stress is.  Is it deadlines, lack of clarity, workload or something else?  Write it down in advance of the conversation.
• Consider how the stress affects you and work e.g. mistakes, motivation.  Let your manager know the impact which it has on you.
• Identify things which might help.  You don’t need all the solutions, but some ideas might help.  For instance, regular check-ins, clearer priorities or training.

If you’re the manager, here’s some tips to guide you in the conversation.

• Ask open questions such as ‘When did this start to feel overwhelming?’, ‘Are there are particular tasks, times or situations that are the hardest?’
• Conduct a stress risk assessment with the employee to identify work-related factors you can influence e.g. deadlines, lack of clarity or something else.
• Agree realistic short terms steps, e.g. adjusted deadlines, clearer priorities, training.
• Agree a review date in 2-4 weeks and encourage them to reach out if things worsen.

Here’s some links you might find useful below:

Supporting workers - Managing work-related stress - Acas

Stress Talking Toolkits for managers - HSE

Workplace resources - SAMH

If you are a line manager and have something specific that you’d like to ask, you can always get in touch with us via email on HRService@scvo.scot. We are a subscription-based service, but we can give some basic advice for free.

More information on us can be found here: HR Service - SCVO.

For more key findings from the 2025 Workforce Survey on wellbeing, as well as recruitment, retention, diversity and pay see the Voluntary Sector Workforce Survey 2025.