Senior managers need to do everything they can to help tackle the problem of stressed workers in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), an industry expert had said.

Recent figures from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) indicate that 10.5 million days of work are lost every year as a result of workplace stress.

Now, Caroline Raymond, a vice-chair of the International Stress Management Association (ISMA), has said that bosses must make tackling stress a top priority.

"Gradually employers are realising that the management of stress is actually a management issue," Ms Raymond explained.

"It's much better to be proactive and try to find the causes, and eliminate them where possible, rather than try to deal with it once it has occurred.

"Stress can be very costly to both individual health and organisational health," she concluded.

Recent reports have suggested that better IT systems and more IT staff in companies could help reduce stress.

The research from BT Ireland found that workers in small businesses spend 15 per cent of their time dealing with stressful IT problems.