This study explored employees' perceptions of organisational change as a stressor within a public sector work place undergoing significant change. A number of major stress-producing factors in that environment were examined and data collected of employees' perceptions of the nature of stress, changes in health status and data gathered of stress-related compensation claims. Data was also collected of employees' perceptions of effective strategies for coping with change from an individual and organisational perspective. The research design was a case study with embedded units of analysis incorporating elements of quantitative analysis. The method was chosen to flesh out the limited choices offered by many standard questionnaires. A case study approach and various categories of stress-related factors were selected measures to evaluate the perceived effects of work place change on stress levels. The eight females and three males, aged 27�50 were each interviewed for an hour for their perceptions of stress and reports of stress related illness, relationship changes and other reported changes�diet, sleep, heart disease, asthma, anxiety and headaches. Workplace changes to the Division were analysed, Departmental claims officers were interviewed and Comcare data analysed. Results show participants appeared to feel or experience "stress" in a way which they distinguished as different from feelings or experiences which were nonstressful states and they appeared able to separate these states and ascribe to each particular qualities. They also seemed able to identify that the stressful state occurred in response to some form of demands. Some subjects (36%) reported developing strategies for managing their stress. The majority of subjects (82%) believed work place change was inevitable and a number of subjects (45%) reported they believed implementation of change to be poorly managed, while some subjects (36%) perceived change impacting negatively on the work place. On the basis of the results, it would appear that a human resource management framework may enable more successful implementation of change in public sector organisations.