A report published recently by Misco, entitled ‘Employee Wellbeing at the Workplace’, which covered the first quarter of 2023, has found that 77 per cent of respondents have experienced mental health problems related to work, including anxiety and stress.
Those who worked from home seemed to experience more work-related stress (81 per cent) compared to 75 per cent who said they felt anxious and stressed but worked from the office.
At the same time, 62 per cent said they never took time off work whenever they felt stressed or anxious, with 73 per cent of these saying they never felt the need to.
Eighty per cent said they would attend a workshop on how to achieve a positive work-life balance if it were offered by their workplace, whereas 74 per cent would even consider stress or anger management sessions.
These are some of the findings from the report, which followed a survey, also conducted by Misco (its fourth), which started in 2020, right before the outbreak of COVID.
Its main aim is to assess mental well-being within the work environment and to promote the importance of constant monitoring the wellness of employers.
“Supporting mental well-being at work is becoming increasingly crucial, especially given that employees’ well-being and mental health affect their performance, productivity and relationships with colleagues and clients,” Sara Anne Galea, an executive at Misco who was responsible for the compilation of this study, said.
“Through this research, employers can gain insight into and better understand how employees perceive their well-being at work and are able to take the appropriate initiatives to strengthen employee engagement and well-being at work,” she added.
The study also discovered which aspects mostly affect performance at work. These include trouble concentrating (48 per cent), being less patient with clients, colleagues and customers (26 per cent), conflict with colleagues (25 per cent) and taking longer to do tasks (24 per cent).
Only 35% would be prepared to talk to someone to reduce stress at work
Other aspects mentioned include having difficulty taking decisions (17 per cent), putting off challenging work (16 per cent), difficulty multitasking (14 per cent) and difficulty with learning new tasks (five per cent).
The study found out how 55 per cent of respondents often found their job to be too stressful, with 47 per cent claiming they experienced pressure and 40 per cent saying they felt they had a heavy workload.
Notwithstanding this, only 35 per cent would be prepared to talk to someone to reduce stress at work, whereas 58 per cent would not even know how to approach the topic of mental health or well-being at work if they were struggling.
“The fact that 93 per cent of respondents agreed they feel employers have a role to play in looking after the mental well-being of their employees shows the impact such a scenario in the workplace has,” Galea went on to say.
One interesting outcome of this survey was that 81 per cent of respondents who said that they have experienced mental health problems related to work were people who work from home, while 19 per cent of respondents who work from home said they experienced mental health problems related to work.
In comparison, 75 per cent of respondents who are not given the option to work from home said they have experienced mental health problems related to work, whereas 25 per cent of the respondents who do not work from home said they did not experience mental health problems related to work.