The detrimental effect of stress on individuals and organizations is widely recognized. Stress is not only troublesome but expensive as well. So, organizations have given enough attention to understand the causes of organizational stress. Yet, comprehensive response to tackle the problem is missing. There are two aspects of the management of occupational stress. One is the individual effort of the employees to manage stress at a personal level. This is called coping. The second, and perhaps the more important aspect, is the efforts of the organization to manage stress among its employees. These efforts are called `organizational interventions' or `stress management interventions'. This paper presents a model to manage stress at organizational level.

Human resource is the most important asset of any organization. A healthy and committed workforce ensures increased efficiency and productivity for organizations. Quality of human resource assumes even greater significance in today's knowledge-driven business. The human capital has replaced dollar capital and the real value of companies depends more on ideas, insights and information in the heads of their employees than on assembly lines or other physical assets (Toffler and Toffler, 1995). In this scenario, World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that by 2020 `depression' is expected to emerge as the second largest global factor contributing to increase in the number of unproductive years in an individual's life (Economic Times (a), 2001). Therefore it has become increasingly important for organizations to evolve approaches and policies that enhance the health of their employees and keep the level of occupational stress at its optimum.

Although data is hard to come by for India, but the far-reaching impact of occupational stress can be assessed from data available for other countries. It is estimated that stress costs the US industry over $150 bn a year through absenteeism and reduced levels of performance (Karasek and Theorell, 1990). Similarly, it is estimated that in the UK as much as 60% of all absenteeism is caused by stress-related disorders (Hindle, Tim, 1998, p. 7). The total cost of stress to UK economy is estimated to be £2 bn per year (Cartwright and Cooper, 1997: 2). According to Xerox Corporation estimates, the cost of losing just one executive to stress-related illness is $600,000 (Cartwright and Cooper, 1997). Other researchers have also estimated the cost of stress to the economy (Ivancevich and Matteson, 1980; Matteson and Ivancevich, 1987; Jex and Beehr, 1991; Mulcahy, 1991; Aldred, 1994). Slobogin (1977) rightly points that the term stress "has moved from the nether world of `emotional problems' and `personality conflicts' to the corporate balance sheet. Stress is now seen as not only troublesome but expensive".