Workplace Stress Is Widespread, But Its Causes May Be Deeply Personal

Stress has become part of the everyday language of work, yet its consequences remain substantial. Britain’s Health and Safety Executive reported that 964,000 workers experienced stress, depression or anxiety caused or made worse by work during 2024 and 2025. These conditions accounted for 22.1 million lost working days, with each affected person taking an average of 22.9 days away from work.

The experience is also visible among younger generations. According to Deloitte’s 2025 Global Gen Z and Millennial Survey, which included more than 23,000 respondents across 44 countries, 40% of Gen Z workers and 34% of millennials felt stressed or anxious all or most of the time. Among respondents who said their jobs contributed significantly, long hours and insufficient recognition were the most frequently cited workplace factors.

These figures explain individual distress and organisational disruption at the same time. An employee may experience sleeplessness, anxiety or reduced concentration, while an employer encounters absence, strained working relationships or interrupted performance. Viewed together, the HSE and Deloitte findings indicate that workplace stress can move through several connected parts of a person’s life and working environment.

Greater awareness has encouraged conversations about well-being, training and access to support. However, broad, generic, and unpersonalised advice can leave an important question unanswered. Two people facing the same deadline, leadership change or workload may interpret and respond to it differently. A useful next step may therefore involve examining how stress appears for each person, what gives a situation its meaning and which response fits that particular experience. 

Johanna Hooper, founder of Limitless Peak Performance and Waves of Potential, adds, “Top 10 lists and ‘here’s what I tried’ blog posts all start with the premise of soothing rather than solving,” she adds. “One size fits nobody.”  

Hooper frames this process as diagnosing stress. Her perspective developed partly through 23 years in the Royal Navy, where she worked in demanding environments that required leadership, adaptability, and decision-making under pressure. Those experiences later informed her TEDx talk, in which she examined how stress, confidence, and underlying personal experiences can shape a leader’s behaviour and effectiveness.

“Stress deserves diagnosis. After all, people do not experience the same event in the same way,” Hooper says. “The first task is to understand how stress shows up, what appears to trigger it, and what meaning the individual has attached to that situation. That curiosity can help identify a response connected to the actual problem.”

Hooper’s framework begins with observing both obvious and subtle signs. She notes that insomnia may be recognisable, while nail biting, skin scratching, withdrawal, or changes in behaviour can be easier to overlook. She then encourages people to examine the circumstances that generate pressure and the personal experiences influencing their interpretation. Hooper presents this as guided reflection rather than clinical diagnosis or therapy.

Through Limitless Peak Performance, Hooper works with leadership teams and organisations on team effectiveness, resilience and persistent workplace stress. Waves of Potential provides personal-development programmes focused on self-awareness, confidence, resilience and individual growth. Across both businesses, she uses individual, small-group and organisational learning formats to encourage closer examination of behaviour and its underlying context.

This approach may also influence how managers respond when employees struggle. Hooper suggests replacing assumptions with careful questions about workload, support, behaviour, and the circumstances surrounding a change. “A manager cannot understand every private part of an employee’s life, but they can create enough space for that person to recognise what is happening and consider what support may be appropriate,” she says.

Hooper is developing these ideas further in a book planned for spring 2027. The book will examine her trademarked stress framework and the organisational effects she associates with unmanaged pressure, including the ways a leader’s behaviour may affect a wider team.

For organisations, that shift could begin with closer attention to context. Workload, managerial support, role clarity, and personal circumstances may interact differently for each employee. Creating space to identify those factors can help leaders move from a general conversation about stress toward a more informed understanding of where pressure is arising and what type of support may be appropriate.

The scale of workplace stress makes continued awareness valuable, but the figures also invite closer examination of what happens after awareness. Hooper’s argument gives individuals and organisations a practical starting question. Before selecting a response, determine the origins of the stress that must be addressed.