0.8 million UK Employees Suffer from Work-Related Stress, Anxiety, or Depression

While it’s normal to be anxious or sad from time to time, it’s worrying if these sensations persist, especially if they appear at work.

It means that your profession stresses you out, and you need to do something about it. Many people nowadays feel overwhelmed by job responsibilities and duties but don’t take any real measures, which is sad because mental health conditions are a crucial factor to consider when taking that job. The reality is even more concerning, as the UK’s number of employees suffering from work-related stress, depression, or anxiety reached 800,000 in 2020/21, according to an HSE report. Statistics are based on self-reports from the Labour Force Survey, as Health and safety at work Summary statistics for Great Britain 2021 states. Higher stress, anxiety, and depression rates were identified, particularly in industries such as human health/social work, public admin/defence, and education. Before the pandemic, major factors contributing to work-related stress were, among others, lack of support, bullying or threat, workload, and changes at work, but today specialists think the Coronavirus pandemic has made things just worse.

No matter the cause, it is essential to understand that mental health plays a critical role in any working environment, and employers have the legal responsibility to ensure good working conditions for their employees to keep a healthy life-work balance.

What is work-related stress?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines work-related stress as the response individuals can have when faced with job pressures and duties that are more than what they can handle or understand. This automatically changes their capacity to cope and causes them stress. This condition occurs in workers who feel overwhelmed by their profession and related responsibilities and in a wide variety of circumstances, including when labourers feel a lack of support from their employers or colleagues, but also when they lose control over the work operations. Nonetheless, there’s an important detail to have in mind: pressure and stress are not always one and the same or connected.

Work pressure is a sometimes-unavoidable aspect, given the number of tasks and responsibilities a profession involves. But this pressure can be taken as acceptable, manageable, and even beneficial. Employees can be more eager to learn, excel, and achieve when there’s pressure on them. Pressure is often behind workers’ motivation to keep going and do their best at the workplace based on their characteristics and resources. Nevertheless, when this pressure exceeds limits and breaks barriers, it becomes hard to manage, a burden some of the unlucky fail to handle. In this case, it hinders productivity and affects employees’ capacity to work and learn. It can also lead to unimaginable stress and thus damage labourers’ mental health. This notion has even a name – “performance pressure paradox.” When this occurs, survival is put first and success second. Negative emotions like anger, guilt, frustration, inadequacy, and loneliness can hijack workers’ smart thinking potential.

What causes work-related stress?

Employees feel stressed at work for various reasons, but some of the most common are:

• unsatisfactory working conditions
• poor management
• poor work organisation
• poor work design
• lack of support from supervisors and colleagues

WHO also states that work implying excessive pressures and demands that don’t adapt to employees’ skills and knowledge is the most stressful and anxiety-inducing. In this situation, there’s little to no chance for workers to have control over and exercise any choice and support from others is also missing. That’s why it’s highly advisable for employers to match their job demands with labourers’ abilities and knowledge and continually assess their needs. If these conditions aren’t met, there’s a chance for workers to develop some kind of mental illness due to high levels of stress experiences at the workplace. In such an unfortunate event, employers are responsible for their labourers’ emotional distress and can further be brought to trial. Specialists from InjuryAtWorkClaimsExpert.co.uk state that any form of emotional distress can constitute the general damages head of a compensation claim. Therefore, workers exposed to high-stress levels and further developing a medical condition can be financially compensated for their losses.

Mental illness and work-related stress go together

It’s hard to believe that stress can cause mental illness, but medical experts have long studied the link between stress and conditions like depression and found that chronic stress can indeed lead to depression. Common symptoms of this mood disorder include sadness, loss of appetite, disinterest in social activities, and trouble sleeping. Of course, depression’s aftermath can, in turn, cause stress. In fact, these conditions are interrelated – one can activate the other and vice versa or one can aggravate the other and vice versa.

The same is valid with stress and anxiety. These are, however, not one and the same, but stress is a frequent trigger for anxiety. They can have common symptoms, such as faster breathing and heartbeat, as well as diarrhoea and constipation, according to Medical News Today. Anyway, anxiety often doesn’t have an identifiable trigger, while stress is typically a response to a recognised threat, in this case, inappropriate working conditions. In the same manner, stress and mental health conditions can exist independently. For example, individuals can experience emotional distress without having depression or anxiety and vice versa.

What can employers do to create a challenging but safe working environment?

It’s essential to provide workers with a healthy working environment and keep it challenging to push employees to do their best. But how are these two possible simultaneously? Well, here are some general recommendations that can help in this sense:

• Use behavioural assessments to gain insights into labourers’ tendencies, stressors, and motivations.
• Promote transparent, clear, consistent communication between supervisors, employees, and colleagues.
• Switch from judgement to curiosity
• Address conflicts and issues with communication
• Implant a sense of self-efficacy while providing continuing support
• Treasure diversity and different opinions, ensuring not to marginalise any ideas

Promoting a harmonious working environment should be every employer’s priority. Mental health deserves all the attention, so consider taking it seriously to ensure labourers’ state of well-being and avoid legal problems.