Aussie bosses kept their cool during GFC

Australians' laid-back nature appears to have helped the nation's bosses through the devastation of the global financial crisis.

A new global study shows Australian business owners kept their cool during the crisis with only Scandinavian bosses less stressed.

The research by consultant Grant Thornton International found 36 per cent of Australian business leaders said they suffered increased stress levels last year, compared to a global average of 56 per cent.

Understandably, pressure on cashflow was the biggest concern for Australian bosses in the past year at 28 per cent, followed by the economic environment (27 per cent).

Stress from office politics and heavy workload also rated highly at 15 per cent each, according to the global survey that included 250 medium to large Australian businesses across the five mainland states.

Grant Thornton Australia national head of privately held business services Tony Markwell said it was interesting that Australian business owners placed much more emphasis on office politics than competitor activity.

"This suggests that they link satisfaction and happiness at work to the controllable element of their immediate environment rather than what is going on elsewhere," Mr Markwell said releasing the survey findings on Wednesday.

"This may be a factor in them being able to manage stress levels better than most."

Globally, competitor activity was on average the third biggest cause for worry, yet for Australians, market competition ranked seventh.

Victorian bosses were the least stressed last year at 26 per cent, while South Australians were the most at 46 per cent.

Only Sweden (23 percent), Denmark (25 per cent) and Finland (23 per cent) reported lower stress levels than Australia as a whole in the global survey of 7400 business owners across 36 economies.

At the other end of the scale, bosses in Australia's major trading partner, China, experienced the highest stress levels at 76 per cent.

Ironically, stress levels in the United States, and where the GFC originated, were 50 per cent and just below the global average.

The report generally showed a correlation between stress and days taken off work each year.

But of the "least stressed" countries, Australians take the fewest holidays (15 days per year), compared with Denmark and Finland at 23 and Sweden at 22.

In Australia, Victorians take the most holidays (18.8 days) and have the fewest cases of increased stress, while the more stressed South Australians take four days fewer.

"The comparatively low holiday days taken by Australians in relation to their lack of increased stress levels suggests they must be very good at managing stress in other ways," Mr Markwell said.

"However, global correlations and the differences between Australian states definitely point to the value for business owners in taking time out to reflect and recharge, in order to help bring a new perspective to their decision-making."

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

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