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How are your employees doing?

Perkbox have recently released the results of a survey that they conducted amongst 3,000 UK workers aged 18+ to gauge what they consider to be their biggest contributors to stress in the workplace. Stress affects us all in different ways, but collectively it can impact on our productivity at work, so as an Employer, understanding and identifying factors that contribute to stress amongst your own employees could help to turn your workforce into a happier, healthier and more productive team. 

 We have highlighted a few of the key findings below:

  • 21% of workers identified long working hours as their biggest cause for stress

  • 13% worried about their own and other’s work performance

  • Office politics contribute to making over 9% of workers feel stressed

  • 72% of those earning over £40k are most likely to experience work-related stress

  • Family and relationships contribute to 46% and 35% respectively of workers feeling stressed

  • 1 in 10 workers will take a sick day because of stress, and this is most likely to be taken on a Monday

  • 83% of workers will try to alleviate their own stress through exercise and talking to family and friends

  • Just 3% of workers say they are more productive when under stress

  • 45% of workers say their place of work does not have any measurements in place to help alleviate stress

  • Casual dress helps 61% of workers to feel more relaxed

  • Flexitime is recognised by 21% of workers as a good stress reliever offered by their employer

  • 12% of workers say that a social event helps relieve stress

  • Less than 9% of workers say their employer has regular one-to-ones with them to discuss their mental wellbeing

So what does this tell us and what can be done?

We’re sure you know your workforce well enough to understand what makes them tick (and if you don’t, you should!) so identifying symptoms of the above and putting actions in place to improve work-related stress levels should not be too difficult. 

Factors that you can control such as working hours, flexitime and congratulating a job well done are easy fixes; a ‘well done’ will increase levels of motivation and morale, and as 20% of workers worry about whether they are doing a good job, a pat on the back really can go a long way.

Monday is the most common sick day, and it has been recognised that most sick days are taken because of stress, so can you change your Monday routine in the office to make it a more relaxed place to be at the beginning of the week? Seeing as 61% of workers feel more relaxed in casual attire, can you swap your  ‘Casual Fridays’ to ‘Casual Mondays’? 

Talking to your staff about their stress factors is obviously key to understanding how you can help to relieve stress, not just because it will highlight the obvious but also because it will promote a culture where staff feel their problems are being listened to. Only 9% of workers ever get regular one-to-ones, so that means 91% of workers could be suffering in silence.

Factors that you cannot control, such as family and relationship stresses, can be alleviated by giving your employees access to a service that allows them to discuss their private issues or problems. Again, allowing your staff to see that you are invested in their wellbeing can dramatically improve not only the causes of stress but the way your employees deal with it.