I've written before on the real and significant costs to businesses that fail to put in place people practices to rid their workplace culture of undue stress.  This is something that more owners and leaders are becoming cognizant of, setting up things like EAPs to help their workers cope with the pressures of work, home life, and their other demands.

The conventional wisdom has been that this problem is unique to, and confined to, each organization.  Yet, a study published in this month's issue of the Journal of Organizational Behavior, which I learned about on the TODAY Show's website, shows that once employee stress is severe enough, it can act like a virus:

"This phenomenon jumps workplaces," [study author Merideth Ferguson] says.  "It goes from the workplace to the home to another workplace."

This finding seems particularly alarming for small businesses.  According to the SBA, firms with 500 or fewer employees account for over 99% of all employers and are the leading creators of net new jobs.  Therefore the effect identified in this study spells bad news for our entire economy – at a time when it cannot afford another setback.

Yet, in the silver lining department, these firms' key strengths are their small size and typical lack of silos, which make it easier to implement meaningful change relatively quickly.  This includes employee engagement practices with a fulfillment focus – those that engender caring for people in the totality of their lives and a mutual understanding and appreciation of the responsibilities of leaders and employees toward one another.

Winning Workplaces has written on this extensively.  Check out the selected articles below for practices you can use or adapt to promote a healthy work/life balance among your workforce – and to ensure that "the employee stress buck stops here":

• Feature: How Babies in the Workplace Provide a Win-Win
• Success Story: Barclay Water Management, Inc.
• Success Story: Dealer.com
• Success Story: Guerra DeBerry Coody (GDC)