The UK has been ranked in the top five countries for having the “poorest” mental health wellbeing during the lockdown.
This research comes from Robert Walters, who found that just under a third (30 per cent) of workers claiming that their mental health has been negatively impacted due to working from home.
When breaking down why remote working is causing a decline in mental health, the research found that 69 per cent said lack of physical interaction with their team, 59 per cent said the inability to separate home and work life, 47 per cent said distractions at home, 37 per cent said a lack of structure to the working day and 36 per cent said working longer hours.
Women seem to feel the impact of lockdown more so than men when it comes to their mental health as 34 per cent of women have seen a decline in their mental wellbeing since the lockdown began compared to 24 per cent of men. As well as women feeling the lack of interaction with the team more so than men with 73 per cent vs 62 per cent.
Sam Walters, director of professional services at Robert Walters said:
The findings from the survey are concerning and during a health crisis it is not exactly the kind of news employers want to hear. Much like the government and science world with the COVID-19 virus, companies are learning things daily about how to deal with a remote workforce.
Now that we are over the physical transition and have our designated workspace at home and are comfortable with the technology, our attention must be turned towards the mental health and wellbeing of staff.
Economic uncertainty, health fears, furlough, risk of redundancy, reduced or longer hours, social isolation, poor physical work set-up, home schooling – these are all fresh concerns which employees did not have to worry about two months ago.
Employers should be mindful of these concerns, and if they haven’t done so already should be ramping up the support for staff in this area – whether it be through sharing third party advice and tips, paying for external support, or altering working practices.
The top 15 nations or regions who have seen a drop in mental wellbeing since remote working was enforced are:
- Canada (42 per cent)
- South Korea (40 per cent)
- Africa (32 per cent)
- UK (30 per cent)
- Middle East (29 per cent)
- China (28 per cent)
- Indonesia (26 per cent)
- US (25 per cent)
- Portugal (25 per cent)
- Singapore (25 per cent)
- Ireland (23 per cent)
- The Netherlands (21 per cent)
- Australia (19 per cent)
- Japan (19 per cent)
- Belgium (19 per cent)
This comes as e-days, a workforce intelligence platform found that 53 per cent of UK businesses feel like they do not have adequate resources to support mental health issues in the workplace.
In order to obtain these results Robert Walters spoke to 20,000 employees globally and 1,000 workers in the UK.
Darius is the editor of HRreview. He has previously worked as a finance reporter for the Daily Express. He studied his journalism masters at Press Association Training and graduated from the University of York with a degree in History.
