Life is already stressful. Managing a family, juggling priorities, reconciling aspirations with reality, or even just being stuck in traffic while running late to an appointment, all of this is stressful. Should work add even more stress to our daily lives?

Employers have a responsibility to foster a supportive work environment, providing clear and consistent direction, ensuring proper training and resources to prevent overload, creating safe spaces, cultivating a culture free from toxicity and appointing capable leaders who inspire and guide. But even with all this in place, can we truly expect a completely stress-free workday?

I began reflecting on this after attending a recent conference where an audience member asked a panel of mostly MNC executives what they were doing to reduce employee stress, citing a survey showing a significant number of workers feeling overwhelmed. The panelists responded by listing various programs and initiatives aimed at promoting work-life balance and well-being within their organizations. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder if a realistic addition to their extensive list would simply be: working in a professional, stable and well-compensated environment with world-class career opportunities inevitably comes with pressure. There are deliverables and deadlines to meet as well as conflicting priorities and multiple stakeholders to manage. Stretching beyond one’s comfort zone—sometimes leading to stress—is inherent to the nature of the job. Once the right culture and foundations are in place, there’s only so much more that can be done.

I’ve worked with colleagues who found pressure challenging at any level, yet they wouldn’t consider roles in less demanding organizations, unwilling to forgo the stability, good pay and top-tier benefits of their current employer.

As remote and hybrid work gained traction, we were told implementation was simple: set solid KPIs, foster trust, and measure performance. At the time, I questioned this approach. In-person work often helped diffuse and distribute pressure; could every employee, working independently, manage the weight of individual KPIs? Later, we saw the consequences: those KPIs became a source of stress, and some employees began feeling overwhelmed by the relentless focus on performance metrics.

We all want and deserve work environments that are professional and safe, roles that offer stability, good pay, independence and flexibility in managing our time and priorities. We also deserve work environments that are as stress-free as possible. However, once employers have done all what they must, some level of stress will still remain. Therefore, where do we draw the line between constructive criticism and unproductive dissatisfaction?

I was recently puzzled by a post about business traveling where the author, setting the scene, wrote something along the lines of: 'Taking early flights is not for the light-hearted.' My reaction was: does waking up early to catch a flight truly require a strong heart? Or have we, over time, become less resilient and more sensitive to the routine discomforts of daily life?

As someone once put it: "Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times." I find myself reflecting on where we might be in this cycle today.