Health and well-being schemes top HR strategy to combat stress
More organisations are addressing workplace stress by using health and well-being programmes to increase employee engagement, according to a Towers Watson study.
Four in ten employers already have stress management programmes in place and an additional 31 per cent plan to introduce them in the next two years, the latest Health, Well-being and Productivity survey from the HR consultancy revealed.
The research found that among businesses which actively measured well-being, 98 per cent felt that stress was an issue for their workforce, while a similar proportion (97 per cent) believed work-life balance was also a problem.
Improving the mental health of workers was the second highest priority for organisations (62 per cent), topped only by raising employee engagement (78 per cent).
Nearly nine in ten of the employers surveyed reported that excessive workloads or long hours were the most significant causes of stress. The expanding role of technology – which facilitated work access outside of normal office hours – was named as the second highest cause of stress by three-quarters of respondents.
Other causes of anxiety included a lack of work-life balance (cited by 75 per cent of employers), inadequate staffing (63 per cent), fears about job loss (58 per cent), and a lack of support or training (30 per cent).
Employee Assistance Programmes were the most popular approach for addressing employee stress – used by 88 per cent of employers who had taken steps to manage the issue. Another commonly used strategy was support for flexible working (73 per cent).
But fewer companies had measures in place to pre-empt stress – only one-third of firms operated education and awareness campaigns, or had introduced risk assessments or stress audits.
Rebekah Haymes, senior consultant at Towers Watson, said: “The combination of working long hours and feeling the need to remain on call outside working hours weighs heavily on some employees’ shoulders.
“Employers should think about these factors when developing their health and well-being programme, but they should also think beyond providing support at the point of need. Understanding what drives stress in the workplace will help to identify targeted programmes.”
She added that with staff absences due to stress on the increase, there was a greater need for employers to consider more preventative measures as well as support mechanisms such as Employee Assistance Programmes.
Towers Watson surveyed 74 leading organisations in the UK, employing a total of 785,000 staff across a range of sectors.