At staff meetings of Management Solutions Group, a strategic planning company in Nashville, Tenn., employees are encouraged to report if they're feeling lost, busy, overwhelmed or even great.

The weekly exercise encourages the company's six workers to prioritize and help one another when problems arise.

It's been a big — and welcome — change for employee Mary Sobon.

She previously worked for a fast-food company where "the idea was that everyone was OK all the time," she said. "The stress didn't have anyplace to go."

Employers have been criticized in the past for putting the burden of stress relief on individuals — for example, in the form of a toll-free number they can call for personal problems — rather than on how the organization itself can reduce stress for everyone.

Some employers, however, are going beyond the squeeze balls and looking for new ways to help workers relieve anxiety.

Stress at work can lead to health problems, poor customer service, workplace accidents, and a host of other issues employers should worry about, according to Colin Armstrong, director of health psychology services at the Vanderbilt Dayani Center for Health and Wellness.

Research published in a 1998 issue of the Journal of Occupational Health and Environmental Medicine found healthcare costs are 46 percent greater for employees who report high levels of stress than those who report low stress.

During the grueling tax season, accounting firm Lattimore Black Morgan & Cain in Brentwood, Tenn., offers free dry-cleaning, an Easter egg hunt, cookies and milk, and perhaps more important, a limit on the number of hours that accountants can work.

Throughout the year, the 225-employee company has a flextime policy, in which employees can craft their own schedules based on family needs and other obligations.

"The impact of that on an individual is tremendous," said the company's director of marketing, Leisa Gill.

Interestingly, smaller employers are more likely to offer flextime as a way to attract and retain employees than companies with more than 1,000 employees, according to a recent survey by the Families and Work Institute.

The number of workplaces offering flextime is increasing — from 24 percent that reported doing so in 1998 to 31 percent in 2005, according to the same study.

More specifically designed for stress reduction are the every-other-week chair massages at Bohan Advertising-Marketing in Nashville.

A lottery determines which four employees get a 15-minute free massage, with winners automatically put on the bottom of the pile until everyone gets a chance, said Tom Adkinson of the agency.

"The times I have one, those are great days," he said.