Two thirds of workers in the UK say they are either moderately or extremely stressed and it has impacted their productivity in the last two years.
The study of 2,200 UK employees by workplace wellbeing provider Champion Health also shows that 8 percent of people shared they had thoughts of self-harm or suicide.
Harry Bliss, CEO of Champion Health, said that while the findings were worrying, business leaders could learn a lot from the information.
He added that it presented a wake-up call for businesses, who needed to take the wellbeing and mental health of their teams seriously.
Anxiety and depression
The report revealed a gender gap, with women more likely to feel anxious when compared to their male counterparts. 62 percent of women said they felt anxious while 37 percent of men suffered from anxiety.
The report showed more than half (52%) of UK professionals said they experienced symptoms of depression. Around a quarter (22%) identified as experiencing clinically significant symptoms.
Anxiety and mental health was also related to age – the study said people aged 25-34 are most likely to experience anxiety, depression and financial stress.
Mr Bliss said: “Companies can help turn this dangerous pattern around by taking several steps; and doing so goes much beyond having much happier employees. It will enable employers to retain great people who are motivated to complete brilliant work day in, day out.”
Meanwhile, 70 percent of hybrid workers told Champion Health that they experienced musculoskeletal pain, indicating that organisations needed to pay serious attention to the furniture and equipment their home workers used.
Fatigue and productivity
More than 600 people (28%) said high stress was impacting their productivity, while more than half of respondents say that they were ‘fatigued”. 53 percent reported that tiredness was impacting their productivity at work.
In addition, a total of 56 percent of respondents said they had the “perfect amount of stress to allow them to thrive” but 34 percent said that stress was negatively impacting them. The top factors causing stress at work are workload, lack of control, less support and senior staff.
Regarding productivity and fatigue, Mr Bliss said: “To address this, we need to see a quantifiable, significant step-up in the amount of investment companies make in employee wellbeing strategies so that employees are supported to overcome the struggles that they’ve faced throughout the pandemic. This latest insight shows the clear link between productivity and mental health and wellbeing.
The survey also showed that people feel most energised to work at 10.22am and are least energised at 3.31pm. To counter this, Mr Bliss suggested employers created opportunities for ‘deep work’ at the most energised times. During times when people felt leased energised, i.e. 3.31pm, he suggested companies could hold walking meetings (on video call or otherwise) or allow employees time for thinking around their work.
to access the full report, click here.
Feyaza Khan has been a journalist for more than 20 years in print and broadcast. Her special interests include neurodiversity in the workplace, tech, diversity, trauma and wellbeing.
