The Affects of Stress and Anxiety in the Workplace

The Workplace can be a very stressful environment. Employees experience excessive high workloads and strict deadlines and may feel that they struggle to meet the demands of their job role, therefore leading to a great deal of stress and anxiety. In most cases they are left in a state where they feel that they are no longer able to cope or meet the expectations of work life, and so take time off work to deal with these personal issues. This has serious repercussions for business owners and employers, costing them extensive amounts of money due to absenteeism, higher turnover figures, and a decline in productivity within the workplace.

Work- Related Stress within the UK

In a recent survey, it has been noted that up to 59% of UK adults experience stress within the workplace and only 9% say they have never experienced any type of work-related stress. One of the main factors which causes this is long working hours, which can affect an employee’s mental health, as well as their work performance. 65% of UK adults say that sleep loss also has an impacting affect on their work life, leading them to experience severe anxiety and lack of concentration and productivity at work. Due to these increased levels of stress and anxiety, more than one in ten people within the UK need to take sick days in order to cope with the work-related stress that they are experiencing. One of the main problems addressed by over half of UK employees is that their employers do not provide any help or support in order to relieve employee stress and increase their wellbeing. Only 8% of employers take the steps to include these well-being services within their business.

The Financial Effect of Stress on Employers in the UK

Employee stress is one of the main issues for employers in the UK, due to the amount of money lost from sick days taken. In 2018/19, 57.3% of days absent were reported to have been due to work-related stress, anxiety and depression. This figure has been significantly increasing since 2009, and will continue to do so if no change is made. As a result, employers suffer financially, given that these issues are costing employers and business owners around £10.8-£14.4 billion per year. A prominent statistic shows that in 2015, the number of days lost to stress was £10.4 million, which averages around £618 per day. This has been reinforced by a number of business CEO’s, who have noted that when studying the costs that have came out of insurers, stress is the number one issue, costing extensive amounts of money.

It is clear that work-place stress is one of the most prominent issues for both employers and employees, and in order to target this problem it is essential that practises are put into place to teach employees how to reduce and deal with work-related stress and anxiety effectively.

The question you must therefore ask yourself as an employer is, "Do I have a regular high level mindset program in place that will help my management and employees perform better mentally therefore improving my bottom line in business each year? " This could be the one simple change that makes all the difference not only in your turnover but in a happy, effective workforce.