Robert Macleod, MD of Assessment North East acknowledges an increase in stress levels due to the recent Spending Review and introduces a tool to help managers to develop the relevant skills to reduce and prevent stress in the workplace.

HR consultant and former ACAS advisor, Steve Cave takes the alternative view that stress can be good, helping to keep people motivated and focused, instead of enduring boring and repetitive tasks which cause the brain to wander.

Is your work life full of ceaseless emails, endless meetings, ridiculous hours and maddening colleagues? Coaching guru Matt Somers looks at how coaching can help manage stress...read more for Matt's top tips.

In this edition, our Legal Expert Alexandra Besnard from Sharon Langridge Employment Lawyers takes a look at the importance of effectively managing stress in the workplace from a legal perspective, and discusses the problems that can arise if stress is ignored.

Stress can have a negative impact on your productivity and quality of work. The Health and Wellbeing Good Practice Award has been developed in order to prevent stress from impacting your organisation's performance by creating a supportive culture. Read more for tools on managing stress and health and wellbeing for the long term.

A Teesside school is celebrating becoming one of the best in the country after its unique approach to staff relations led to soaring exam results and a strong report from Ofsted.

National Customer Service Week took place on 4th - 10th October. By focussing on customer service, Theatre Royal in Newcastle have benefitted from a committed workforce, increased ticket sales and have been able to attract top productions. Find out how they did it...

The Law Society has launched a conveyancing quality scheme (CQS) to give clients a recognisable kitemark for firms providing a high standard of service. The scheme is based on a new Law Society transaction protocol, which will introduce consistent standards to speed up the conveyancing process and give more certainty to buyers and sellers.

Here at Investors in People North East, we have joined the latest online social media craze - we are "tweeting" away to keep you up to date on Twitter, and sharing good practice on LinkedIn. Why not follow us on Twitter or join one of the Investors in People Groups on LinkedIn?

We're proud to announce our new programme: 5 Steps to Success. To celebrate the launch of 5 Steps to Success, we are offering you a 10% discount if the programme is started in 2010. Follow the link to find out more about 5 Steps to Success.

We also have spaces available on our usual training courses and workshops:

It's your choice: the Standard and beyond, Bridge Suite, BIC:

Internal Champions (3 day course):

Your next issue of Anecdote will be in January.

Kind regards,

Robert Macleod