Johannesburg - A recent poll found that three in five employees have reported declining mental health due to work-related stress.
The poll by Robert Walters Recruitment surveyed close to 2000 participants and revealed that 63% of professionals suffered from workplace-related stress, with 35% of professionals indicating that the workload and the type of work they did were the biggest triggers.
A worrying 55% also indicated that they did not think that their employees were doing enough to help combat work-related stress, and that also accounted for 21% who stated that high workloads had resulted in low-quality work being produced.
When asked how often they felt this way, 41% stated very often, with a further 22% saying they felt like this “somewhat often”, and only 28% identifying this as happening “sometimes”.
Only 9% reported that they had not experienced any form of “reoccurring stress” in the workplace this year.
According to the poll, stress symptoms were said to be experienced more than three times during a workweek.
“Irrespective of companies spending 20% more on employee wellness initiatives and benefits every year, depending on the size of the business, our survey indicated that they may only be applying a band-aid to the bigger problem at hand,” said Samantha-Jane Gravett, director of Robert Walters Africa.
She added: “Employers must find the balance between not breaking the bank or piling pressure onto managers to solve workplace stress and rather be more proactive and listen to the needs of their employees through conducting internal and anonymous surveys with employees to ascertain greater insights into where a business may need to focus on as this is not as simple as a one size fits all.”
Gravett explained that factors such as long work hours, heavy workloads, tight deadlines, unclear job expectations, job insecurity, and conflicts with colleagues or supervisors were all factors that contributed to workplace stress.
If not addressed, Gravett said this could snowball into higher turnover rates, higher levels of employee burnout and absenteeism, and lower productivity levels.
“Simple interventions such as making sure workloads are manageable, setting realistic deadlines, and making sure employees have access to support, safe spaces, and relevant resources like mental health programmes can all help to alleviate pressure in the workplace as well as professionals’ day-to-day work lives.”
The poll echoes sentiments expressed by the second Annual Mental State of the World Report 2021 from Sapien Labs, which found that South Africa ranked as one of the worst countries regarding mental health.
The 2021 report, published in March 2022, based its findings on 223 000 responses from 34 countries, all with access to the internet, in four languages.
The Star