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Page | 13 www.boostress.eu could access meditation, relaxation and guided breathing exercises, these were only known by some research participants (4 young professionals and 2 stakeholders) and all agreed that it was generally up to the employee to find these resources and to use them; that support for these activities in developing coping strategies for stress management were not supported by employers. There has also been no formal study to assess the effectiveness of these apps and platforms in supporting young professionals to manage and overcome stress. Despite the lack of support, even among our small research group, the issue of workplace stress is apparent; with 20 respondents (80%) answering that they experience stress in their current job. When asked if they were aware of any training programmes available online or through face-to-face delivery that aim to help young professionals to manage their stress; only 1 respondent stated that they are aware of “lots of training courses offered on managing your stress”; but this survey respondent did provide any details of any specific courses or programmes. As a follow-up to the previous question, young professionals were next asked if they had any knowledge of existing online resources that could be used to help young workers in Europe to manage their stress. Similar to the responses to the previous question, the 96% of respondents stated that they are not aware of any such online resources, and only 1 respondent stated that they are aware of online tools and resources, which included some guided meditations on YouTube and using some apps to practice Mindfulness. While stakeholders were also aware of some apps - Calm; Relax – Meditate, Sleep, Calm; Prana Breath and Sleep Sounds - none of the stakeholders interviewed had any previous experience of using these online tools to support young professionals they work with. During the online and telephone interviews, stakeholders highlight that while work-place stress is addressed in national labour policies, there is no support for the individual employers to provide support to their employees; so therefore, if employees are given time off for personal development and training in stress management, employers are not compensated for this time off; which is a major factor that impacts especially SMEs who typically have a small staff team. In relation to training, stakeholders specifically highlighted the need for training in task and time management for young employees. From their experience of working with and managing young professionals, in their view the main difficulty young employees experience with managing their stress is that they may become overwhelmed by their work-load; when, with proper planning and scheduling of their up-coming tasks, they would eliminate their stress over these issues. They also highlighted that often young employees who come straight from a university environment have little practical work-place experience; and so, they can become stressed over issues such as managing professional relationships; working in an office environment; working in a transnational environment; working through a second-language (English was mentioned); event management and planning, etc. These stress-inducing factors should be borne in mind when the BooStress project team is developing their suite of training materials to support young professionals to manage stress in Europe. Findings National Empirical Research In this section, comparable results from the empirical research completed in each partner country are presented. Empirical Research Findings from Cyprus Young professionals who participated in the focus group in Cyprus stated that they use different methods to cope with stress in their working environment, which include: trying to put aside the stress and then concentrate and set goals in order to manage it; trying to turn stress into something positive; asking for help from their colleagues, etc. However, most respondents stated that they do not follow

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