Workplace Stress: An Article Analysis It is certainly a fact that most people have jobs or careers that contribute some level of stress in their life. It has recently been discovered that many people experience a higher than normal level of stress in the workplace due to technology-related issues. With the boom in technology, many companies are jumping on the bandwagon and incorporating new, high-tech programs to improve the quality and productivity of their business. Unfortunately, many of these companies are implementing these new programs without providing their employees with the tools necessary to make them work effectively. This has caused a lot of stress in the workplace for all parties involved, including upper-level managers, lower-level managers, employees and the IT department. In a study conducted by Athabasca University in Alberta Canada concluded that "only 20% of respondents believe that IT has not increased employee stress levels and only 27% believe that their organization manages IT very well introducing change brought about by IT" (Robinson, Irving & Carr, 2001, p.45). These numbers are staggering simply because the implementation of new technologies in the workplace is usually intended to reduce employee workload and stress, not increase it. The most obvious problem that employees have with new technologies is that they feel that their work could have been done better the old way, which was usually manual. The first problem that leads to employee stress usually stems from the initiation of the change, the building of the program. IT specialists are normally just that, specialists, and are very competent in carrying out their job duties, but everyone has a bad idea, or an idea that hasn't been carefully thought through, from time to time. It is a fact that these programs are not always well designed and are insufficient from the start. Then, when you factor in poor training, poor access to technical support, and an inability to fix errors in a timely manner, it can be a recipe for disaster. Increased workplace stress has caused many negative consequences in today's organizations. In an article written in 2003, a study conducted by the UK Health and Safety Executive estimated that "work-related stress accounts for more than a third of all new episodes of illness and that in the UK nearly thirteen million working days they were lost due to stress." , depression and anxiety in 2004-2005" (Teed, 2006, p.