What do two stressed-out former recruiters do to make the work environment a better place? They join forces to combat stress in the workplace by launching a one-day corporate stress management programme.

Under the direction of the Stress Management Society’s Neil Shah and spa director at Careys Manor Hotel’s SenSpa, Lina Lotto, the programme will first be offered this month. It includes a morning seminar teaching stress management tools and techniques, followed by a relaxing afternoon in the Thai spa. “The recruitment business is tough and competitive, and the pressures are great,” Lotto told Recruiter. “In the early 1980s I suffered burnout and my health suffered. The health challenges I experienced prompted me to explore many other aspects of wellbeing.”

Shah’s experiences were similar. “Things started to become very stressful and challenging,” he told Recruiter. “Given that I had a background in HR, recruitment and the service industry, as well as watching my employees suffer, I decided to set up an organisation [the Stress Management Society] to support those adversely affected by stress.”

According to the Health and Safety Executive, one in five people suffers from workplace stress and 13.5m working days are lost due to stress, at a cost of £3.7bn to the economy.

In 1998 Shah set up recruitment agency IT recruiter Pan Global Solutions, with offices in the UK, South Africa and Australia. He sold the business in 2003. Lina

Lotto began in IT recruitment in 1978 for Key Operations, launching telecoms recruiter Comms Liveware on behalf of the company in the early 1980s. She left recruitment in 1991.

A review of the health of Britain’s working age population published in March 2008 found that for every £1 invested in the well-being of employees, businesses gain £6.15 in productivity.