Are the pressures of Britain’s work culture taking its toll on the nation’s mental health? The results from a recent survey certainly give cause for concern.
Among the 1,500 working adults surveyed by cheaplights.co.uk, 78 percent claimed that they spent their weekends worrying about work. Sixty-two percent also admitted that work-related anxieties regularly kept them awake at night.
Among the burden of stress are unrealistic workloads, pressures from management and disruptive colleagues, worrying a typical employee, on average, three hours a day. Based on 44.5 years being the average working life for Brits, researchers worked out that employees typically spend five years of their life worrying about their job.
Work place stress has got so bad in some that 23 percent have thought about seeking professional help to deal with it.
The pressures of working a 43-hour week
Considering a large proportion of our nation’s working population are affected by stress at work it’s clearly a big issue that needs addressing. The Mental Health Foundation reports that work related stress already costs Britain 10.4 million working days per year.
The findings may not be all that surprising though when you take Britain’s culture of long working hours. Working nine to five, is a distant memory for many, with the average working week in the UK now 43.6 hours compared with a European average of 40.3 and limits of just 35 in France, according to a report by the TUC. Worst still, 13 percent of the UK working population now works 49 hours or more per week.
Given the dramatic rise in recent years, long working hours such as this are not expected to ease any time soon. However there’s a lot that can be done to ensure that workers are resilient to mental health problems caused by work-related stress.
Keeping a healthy work-life balance
The Mental Health Foundation has come up with a number of helpful ways workers and employees can create a better work-life balance. Employers need to be aware of specific cases of excessive work demands in order to address them. Therefore, it is helpful if individuals track the number of hours they work over weeks and months and raise their concerns with managers to hopefully gain their support.
The Mental Health Foundation suggests that employers “develop policies that acknowledge the association between work-related stress and mental health.” These policies it says, “should also describe the roles and responsibilities of employees at all levels in the organisation in promoting mental health, and describe mechanisms to support staff who experience mental health problems.” Keeping an eye on the problem also plays a vital part. The Foundation advises workplaces to “regularly monitor and evaluate policies against performance indicators such as sickness, absence and improvements in staff satisfaction.”
As for individuals a new working style could help – or ‘work smart, not long’ – as the Foundation calls it: “allowing yourself a certain amount of time per task – and trying not to get caught up in less productive activities, such as unstructured meetings that tend to take up lots of time.”
Are you doing enough to reduce stress at work?