Introduction Stress in the workplace has emerged as a significant and universal problem in terms of negative health, loss in productivity and socio-economic turbulence. Latest research concludes that integrated stress management (systems approach) showed benefits both to individuals and organisations. It will help to identify the scope of primary, secondary and tertiary interventions in a given organisation in handling stress to gain overall organisational effectiveness. Against this backdrop, Stress Safety Net, a comprehensive model was conceptualised and tested for its efficacy.

Methods An experimental study was conducted on 1000 employees in two different workplace settings in two major companies and in each workplace 500 employees participated in the study. Pre and post test was conducted to verify the efficacy of Stress Safety Net Model. Physiological, Bio-chemical, Psychological and Organisational parameters of stress were tested. Data were analysed using SPSS.

Results Employees perceived distress was significantly reduced. Bio-chemical parameters i.e. Total Cholesterol and LDL have dropped very significantly (p<0.001). Other parameters such as Serum Cortisol, Orthostatic Tolerance Test (OTT) and C-reactive protein (CRP) which are indirect measures of stress showed a significant decrease with (p<0.01), (p<0.05) and (p<0.05) respectively. Overall Role Stress reduced significantly (p<0.05). Organisational level variables i.e. Management competencies and psychosocial safety climate were improved significantly.

Conclusion Stress Safety Net (a set of well-defined practices, policies, and competencies) implemented by the organisations that helped to identify and overcome stress triggers, promote stress resilience thus enabled employees to execute their task/deliveries efficiently. The findings demonstrated the efficacy stress safety net model enabled the systems approach in stress management at the workplace.