First of two parts
Work is stressful. Full stop.
In this era, where phones and laptops connect so many of us to our colleagues at all hours of the day, work stress is hard to escape. The pandemic brought work into our homes in an unprecedented way, making it even more challenging for our work brains to shut off, even at kitchen tables and in spare bedrooms.
As a clinical psychologist and executive leader, I’ve seen first-hand an alarming rise in work stress across all generations. While the workplace tends to break down age differences like no place else (particularly in today’s environment, as Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers are struggling to co-exist), work stress has become an intergenerational through-line that connects all of us. Its impact can be devastating on employees’ mental and physical health and their personal relationships – which, in turn, affect their productivity, absenteeism, presenteeism and retention. It is a national epidemic.
Read more: Why employers should add SAFE leave to their PTO options
But there are solutions: I believe that by recognizing and addressing the pervasive drivers of stress in the workplace, we can tip the scales back toward the days when the pros of remaining (and even excelling) in a job far outweighed the occasional cons spurred by on-the-job stress.
Let’s take a deeper look. Each year, we publish a report on how employees, CEOs and HR leaders perceive stress in the workplace. The findings in our recently published 2024 Workforce State of Mind report illuminate the problem:
- 77% of employees say that work stress has negatively impacted their physical health.
- 75% say it caused them to gain weight.
- 71% report that work stress has caused a personal relationship to end.
- Nearly 40% report that work has negatively impacted their ability to care for their family or children’s mental health.
- 37% report that work stress has contributed to serious mental health challenges, such as substance use or suicidal ideation.
As HR and benefits leaders, we should be alarmed by these problems and how widespread they are. Our findings show that, despite the differences among generations in the workforce, the impact of work stress on personal lives is prevalent across the board. For decades we have been discussing the importance of work-life balance – or as some call it, work-life harmony – and how to achieve it.
To make this term a reality, employers must acknowledge the fact that regardless of what generation we are part of, we all have a pool of energy that we draw from – one that is finite and needs to be replenished. The things that deplete our energy pool come from both personal and work demands, which are increasingly intertwined in this work-from-home age.
Read more: 4 ways to make wellness a part of the workday
To achieve a work-life balance, we need to attend to what draws down the energy pool and how we refuel it both at work and home. Knowing this, we can put in place the cultural structure that honors and encourages the work-life balance necessary for fostering and retaining happier, healthier and more productive employees.
Mental health and work stress rates were climbing prior to COVID-19, and the pandemic sent them soaring. Now is the time to focus on actionable strategies that first acknowledge the finite energy pool for ourselves and our employees, and second, address the impact of work stress across generations to improve both personal and professional longevity.
For the vast majority of workers, work-related stress doesn’t end after their shift. The stressors we experience in one role or space are carried with us to our other roles and spaces. Left unresolved, stress doesn’t evaporate in the air of the employee parking lot. It builds until it impacts our sleep, diet and interpersonal relationships – the foundations of our mental health. Acknowledging and accepting stress’s infiltration into our total selves positions us to focus on our approach to regulating it in a way that creates personal an. d professional longevity. The urge to quit every Friday due to stress is not sustainable.
Read more: Masterclass at Work’s advice: Add Gen AI to learning and development strategies
So, what’s to be done?
There are a few effective approaches that, as leaders, we can integrate into our workplace culture, and in turn, mitigate work stress and improve work-life balance. For starters, we need to focus on progress, not perfection in pursuing a redefined work-life balance. We also need to leverage the power of relationships and human connections, as well as encourage peer-to-peer and intergenerational mentorship. Other steps include the need to explore modernized employee assistance programs to actually meet employees where they are with mental health support, and share the load between employers and employees.
In part two of this series, I’ll dive deeper into these approaches and how management and HR teams can work with their employee base to implement them.
