In a high-pressured environment such as recruitment, people may accept stress as something that just goes with the territory. But ignoring stress – and its potentially damaging effects – could end up strangling your business.

Under current health and safety legislation, workers have the right to sue their employers if they feel stress levels are unacceptable. Until now, however, there have been no standards in place to measure these levels of stress. But new guidelines have been introduced to set out these standards – which could lead to a flood of compensation claims from stressed-out staff.

Every year in the UK more than 13 million working days are lost due to stress, at a cost to the economy of more than £4.5bn, according to figures from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). What’s more, half a million people believe stress at work is making them ill.

In June, the HSE launched a new code of conduct that it hopes will reduce the impact of workplace stress by helping businesses identify the signs before it becomes a problem. But there are deeper implications.

The new guidelines – due to be formally launched in 2004 – require employers to prove that employees are satisfied with their working environment in six key areas: the demands of their job; that they have an adequate say over their work; that they feel they get adequate support from colleagues and superiors; that they are not subjected to unacceptable behaviour; that they understand their role and are kept informed of any organisational change.

Recruitment is a notoriously stressful profession. Consultants frequently have to see candidates outside of normal work hours and are under constant pressure to increase revenue. And in agencies where the lion’s share of salary is based on commission, the environment is especially stressful.

“Because recruiters are results-driven, and are often working towards pre-determined goals, they can feel stressed if they’re falling behind,” explains Margaret Clare, managing director of Solutions Recruitment in Newcastle. “There are also certain situations in recruitment, for example if a client calls to say they don’t like a candidate and you have to go back to that candidate and tell them they’re out of a job, which all add to stress.”

For most recruiters, the standards laid out in the new HSE code of conduct are common sense. But defining the boundaries between being under pressure in a difficult environment and being subjected to stress-related illnesses could be more challenging than in other sectors. Many consultants thrive on pressure because they know that their commission will form a major proportion of their pay packet. That is not to say that recruiters should simply accept being super-stressed as part of their job description.

“You have to create sensible boundaries,” advises Nick Isles, head of current affairs at The Work Foundation. “Some employees are happy to work long hours and that can put pressure on colleagues who feel they have to match them. Keeping an eye on the workaholics is as important as anything.” According to Isles, one of the most effective ways to contain stress levels in the workplace is to give employees as much autonomy as possible.

Flexible working is another approach. Jo Thurman, recruitment director at Flexecutive, an agency that specialises in placing candidates in flexible working roles, believes a lot of recruitment work need not be done in the office. “Not every job can be done flexibly, but you can do a lot of the phone work and candidate and client chasing from a remote location,” she says. But to make this happen, you’ll need to invest in technology. Access to the client and candidate database needs to be seamless, as does access to CVs or candidate records.

The key is to achieve a balance, says Isles. “People will often go that extra mile for you when times are busy if you cut them some slack when it’s quiet. Forcing people to work long hours or do things they don’t want to is anti-social and doesn’t increase performance.”

Agencies who don’t observe these new rules could find a new source of stress: compensation claims.