Does time on personal smartphones reduce stress at work?

A study by researchers at the University of Galway’s Business School has pointed to the advantages of turning a blind eye to staff using their personal smartphones at work.

Moderate amounts of time spent dealing with personal issues, around family or other arrangements, were found to have no real impact on performance levels. At the same time, employees felt less stressed and believed they had a better work/life balance.

Phone home

The research explored the situation within a particular company where smartphones had previously been banned — because they were considered too much of a distraction and a health and safety risk — except for among the senior management.

Employees were observed over the course of a year. They reported a large reduction in conflicts between work routines and demands and their personal lives; they felt more in charge of personal communications and messaging, leading to less feelings of being overwhelmed at home — and that it improved relations with partners.

Feeding the habit

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “It’s no surprise that access to smartphones lowers stress levels. If smartphones have become a kind of drug in people’s lives, then letting people have more regular doses through the day is going to have that effect. Whether it’s healthy in general is another question entirely.

“The findings here are really just another example of why organisations need to be clear about boundaries. Otherwise, allowing more time on personal smartphone matters at work just means more blurring of work and home, and other signal that people have to do the same during out of work hours. “Clarity is so important for encouraging good mental health: when people might be able to use tech on personal things at work, and the very particular occasions when they might be expected to respond to work matters at home.”

Is ‘burnout’ a badge of honour?

The Cigna 2023 Vitality Study has claimed that 98% of male employees from Generation Z are currently experiencing at least one symptom of burnout; 89% of Millennials and 81% of Generation X.

Around half of the men from the Millennial and Generation Z groups believe their organisation is more interested in productivity than supporting their mental health and wellbeing. ’Always on’ working and presenteeism was found to be common. 87% of Generation Z workers said they had continued to work while unwell.

Burnout dilemma

In response to the figures, mental health campaigners have pointed to the threats from burnout — the risks to men’s mental health over time, and especially those in middle and senior management positions who see themselves as needing to set an example of resilience, as well as being concerned about the impact of admitting any kind of vulnerability on their career.

If more men are willing to acknowledge they might be suffering from burnout, or at least at risk of being negatively impacted by stress and pressure, then it’s a starting point for re-thinking how they are working and building in more time for ‘time out’ and balance.

Busy glamour

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “For decades, long hours working in some professions has come with a certain glamour. If you’re always working, always running from one meeting and one call to another, it’s a signal of success, of a dynamic career.

“Even with the new attention being paid to workplace wellbeing, this can still be the case. Which is why it’s important for HR to be wary of claims around burnout. In some instances, claiming to be burnt out can be a badge of honour, something fashionable, or at least something assumed.

“What’s important is that people have the chance to talk through their experiences and their symptoms with an independent professional; they are thinking through a practical response and not make any assumptions about what’s happening to them and potential problems. In other words not encouraging a self-fulfilling cycle of poor mental wellbeing.”

Why are employees still working on Christmas Day?

A survey by People Management among 1,500 HR professionals has concluded that 66% frequently work during their time off, with the ‘always on’ culture even leading to people working on Christmas Day.

On average, staff on annual leave end up working two and a half hours each day (according to Forbes research). Around a quarter take their work laptop and phone on holiday. One in five said they have worked while on holiday, whether they were in the UK or overseas; with 11% admitting to working on Christmas Day when they were meant to be on holiday.

A working state-of-mind

A digital culture and its blurring of boundaries of time and place, means checking devices and messaging (including those from work) are part of everyday life.

But the rise of hybrid work as the norm has had an effect. In the study, 28% of hybrid and remote workers felt they were expected to do more work while on holiday compared to office workers. And this was backed up by another finding that 64% of hybrid and remote workers worked outside of their expected hours, compared to 44% of office-based workers. 

The biggest reason was said to be because of a sense of responsibility to always reply, not to leave messages unanswered. 18% said it led to feelings of stress, that they were “missing something”.

Sharing the switch-off

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “Except for essential workers and people who choose to work, Christmas should be sacrosanct as a holiday; a centuries old time for celebration and rest — a modern form of hibernation. “HR need to be keep aware of how digital devices have changed routines and also attitudes and feelings of responsibility and guilt. There need to be clear policies that set clear boundaries around a what is expected; managers need to set examples. They both need to think about why employees might feel they need to work in the first place.”

Mental health epidemic just keeps on growing in 2023

Figures from the Health & Safety Executive’s research among 27,000 UK households point to increasing rates of self-reported and work-related stress, depression and anxiety — the most common cause of work-related ill-health.

875,000 workers were reported to have suffered from the conditions in 2022/23 — a higher rate than in the same research in 2018/2019, before the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. 338,000 of those were suffering from a new case of stress, depression or anxiety. The HSE has said that mental ill-health led to 17.1 million lost working days in the past year.

Younger generations struggle

In another new and related study, the Health Foundation found that the past 10 years have seen a 58% increase in the number of employees with a ‘work-limiting’ health condition (from 2.4 million people in 2013 to 3.7 million, or 12% of the working population, in 2023. The biggest growth has come from younger workers in the 16-34 age group, where numbers have doubled from 5.3% reporting a work-limiting condition to 10.4%.

Significantly, mental health conditions have been the biggest driver in the change. The proportion of younger people with mental wellbeing concerns has grown from just 1% to 3.8%.

Designed for life?

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “With the return to more normal ways of working after the additional shocks and stresses of the Covid-19 period, there should have been a ‘halo’ effect. A collective sigh of relief, renewed enthusiasm for work and work routines. Instead levels of reported mental ill-health cases keep on rising.

“HR need to look at the basics. There’s no doubt that work has changed in the wake of the pandemic: more remote an hybrid working, fewer social activities, more pressure on returning to high levels of performance and productivity. Combined, of course, with worries around the more uncertain world we live in.

“That means paying attention to employee experience and making sure there is a balance, that roles are designed for real lives, with reasonable demands and targets, routines include plenty of opportunities for social interaction, where there is always a sense of control and belonging. “This needs to be backed up with real support for wellbeing as part of the culture — particularly when it comes to early recognition and prevention around stress, anxiety and depression.”

Employer attention to mental wellbeing falling into decline

Results from a global survey of 32,000 employers in 17 countries points to a growing divide between employee needs around mental health and the actual response.

In the UK, 56% said stress was having a negative effect on their ability to work; and 34% that poor mental health was affecting their performance.

At the same time, ADP Research Institute’s People at Work 2023 study found that fewer workers believed they were getting support from managers, down from 70% last year to 64%. More significantly, 60% suggested their managers were ‘ill-equipped’ to talk about mental health in the first place.

Employers were less likely to ‘check-in’ on mental health, offer wellbeing days off or counselling support.

WFH backlash

Another signal of the reversal of attitudes and offerings to staff has been around WFH. More business leaders have gone public in their criticism of WFH since Lord Alan Sugar and Elon Musk. The Goldman Sachs CEO has said that WFH was an “aberration” and the trend had to go as soon as possible.

Most recently, at a Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia, the CEO of Blackstone Group claimed that employees chose remote working because “they didn’t work as hard, regardless of what they tell you.” They were just trying to save on the cost of commuting, lunches and work clothes.

Support in practice

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “One of the positive trends since the Covid-19 period and heightened awareness of workforce mental health has been a rise in the number of organisations setting up EAP support, and extending those EAP services around counselling. People need to know there is always someone they can talk to.

Is menopause awareness training for managers enough?

Many women, experienced professionals who have reached important stages in their careers, suddenly feel unsupported when it comes to going through a menopause or perimenopause stage (which can occur at any point from the late 30s but is most likely in the early 50s).

The typical symptoms — issues such as ‘brain fog’ and anxiety, along with poor sleep and memory — can have a significant impact on everyday work, and in particular, adding to the challenges involved around dealing with pressure and stress.

Training tactics

A survey has suggested that around 37% of managers receive training on menopause symptoms. 25% of managers admitted they wouldn’t know how to respond if they were approached to deal with issues. 16% even said they believed that employees who talked about their meno-pause experience were just making an ‘excuse for poor performance’.

In response to these and other findings, wellbeing commentators in HR have called for a closing of the ‘knowledge gap’, and for managers to be upskilled to make sure they understand the physical, emotional, and psychological aspects of menopause. And in turn, they will then be able to introduce strategies that make for a supportive and inclusive workplace culture.

Support in practice

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “The rejection of providing protected status for menopause under the Equality Act means there continues to be very different levels of attention and un-derstanding among employers.

“But for all managers, having conversations about the symptoms involved and finding the right response continues to be problematic. Their priority is performance and delivery at work, and having to deal with personal, sensitive stories can just feel like a distraction. As a result, em-ployees don’t feel like they’re being listened to.

“Again this is where access to an independent service like an EAP comes in; where there’s a chance to speak freely about the interplay between home and work life, the physical and psy-chological symptoms. In this way women can reach a clear position on where they are, what they need in practical terms to support them, and can go back to managers with a proposal ra-ther than feeling they are simply becoming passive and unable to cope.”

The rise of ‘mental health washing’?

A survey of 1,000 UK adults for World Mental Health Day found that 79% don’t believe their employer is genuine about acting on mental wellbeing: they’re happy to talk about the value of mental health and their commitments, but that doesn’t translate into policies and action in practice.

In other words, the internal postings, social media statements and web campaigns are a form of ‘mental health washing’, it’s claimed.

The one-off approach

The study by the payroll and finance software provider MHR also pointed to how 19% of FTSE 100 employers only posted about mental health once a year — only to coincide with the awareness-raising events like World Mental Health Day, and nothing more.

In response to the findings, HR commentators have criticised the trend for organisations to introduce one-off schemes, wellbeing and finance apps, free yoga or health foods, rather than look to create a full wellbeing strategy that includes accountability, a level of monitoring of impact and progress.

The proactive EAP

EAPA UK Chair, Karl Bennett said: “Expectations among staff around attention and support for mental wellbeing have been transformed — and there’s no going back. Work and workplaces have a real impact on people’s mental health, including many positive benefits. It’s a shared responsibility.

“Increasingly that means moving away from promotional activities, or what might feel like token schemes, towards demonstrating impact and what really works for both employees and the organisation by getting to to the crux of what’s causing problems. “EAPs will play a more important role, as the basis of a more pro-active and preventative service, ensuring there are earlier interventions among employees — demonstrating active commitment and catching situations before they lead to health issues that no simple perks and offerings can ever help with.”

Why EAPs are essential to a proactive approach to sickness absence

Research by the CIPD and Simplyhealth [[https://www.cipd.org/globalassets/media/knowledge/knowledge-hub/reports/2023-pdfs/8436-health-and-wellbeing-employee-views-2023.pdf ]] has suggested UK employees took an average of 7.8 days of sick leave in the last year — an increase of two whole days over pre-pandemic levels, and the highest number of 10 years. The data comes from 6.5 million employees in 918 UK organisations.

Stress was picked out as a key reason for the increases, with 76% of employees seeing it as the main factor: stress caused primarily by ‘heavy workloads’ and ‘management style’. The most common reasons for long-term absence were given as mental ill health (63%), acute medical conditions such as stroke or cancer (51%) and musculoskeletal injuries (51%). 

Whose responsibility?

The report found most organisations were addressing health and wellbeing issues through occupational sick pay leave schemes (69%) and access to an EAP (82 per cent). At the same time, only 53% have a standalone wellbeing strategy looking at how to best integrate and drive activities.

It goes on to suggest there needs to be a shift in responsibility for employee wellbeing towards a shared role via preventative health and wellbeing strategies in order to deliver better results and reverse the sickness absence trend.

The proactive EAP

EAPA UK Chair, Karl Bennett said: “EAPs aren’t — or shouldn’t be — just a reactive offering. Any preventative health programme needs to start with raising awareness of the range of EAP provision, and its value in helping to address root issues early, the kinds of issues that snowball from feelings of stress and loss of control into both physical and mental health problems.

“EAPs have always been seen as an employee benefit — but I believe we are now much more than that, supporting millions of people each year with counselling, professional assessments and psychological therapies, we have become the ‘go-to’ for mental health support for businesses. 

“As a sector we need to be encouraging a focus on the preventative elements of our services, adding more non-clinical services like Mental Health Coaching.”

The cost of poor sleep

More than a third of UK adults don’t believe they get enough good quality sleep on most nights, according to a study by Canada Life. 16% said poor sleep was making it difficult to maintain their physical and mental health. And as a consequence, 11% of sick days were the direct result of poor sleep.

On average, people were found to get just 6 hours and 12 minutes of sleep a night (compared with the recommended 7 to 9 hours). 63% felt like they needed to take a nap during the working day.

Calculations point to 15% having taken an average of three days off work in the past year because of a lack of sleep, which would translate to a total of 14.4 million sick days in a year across the whole workforce. A RAND Europe study has suggested that poor sleep in the UK’s working population costs the economy around £34 billion a year.

Keeping us up

In the Canada Life study, 21% of people pointed to physical conditions as the cause of their limited sleep; 17% to poor mental health. Around a quarter said they stayed up too late, and 14% blamed having their mobile phone or other devices in the bedroom.

Among people who have actively tried to deal with problems sleeping: 45% have taken sleeping pills or other forms of medication, 36% have spoken to their NHS doctor, 32% have tried meditation or mindfulness, 29% have used alternative or herbal medicine and 23% have made use of an app.

Proactive EAPs

EAPA UK Chair, Karl Bennett said: “Sleep is like a barometer of our overall health. When we’re in decent shape physically and have a sense of balance in our minds, then sleep comes naturally — working as an essential part of a healthy cycle for our days. Disturbed sleep is not just a cause of ill-health but a symptom.

“Rather than relying on medication to force sleep, it’s important for employees to be able to get themselves back into that natural cycle, and that means dealing with underlying issues that cause us to be restless psychologically: because of problems at work, with relationships, with finances — knowing that they can get professionals advice and the support of counsellors when they need it. EAPs provide that practical release valve.”

How an ageing workforce will change HR’s approach to wellbeing

Research from The Health Foundation has claimed that the number of adults in England faced with long-term health conditions — like cancer, diabetes and kidney disease — will rise by 2.5 million by 2040, an increase of 37% on 2019 figures: meaning 9.1 million people.

The study found that the largest increases in chronic illnesses would be related to anxiety and depression, chronic pain and diabetes, the kinds of conditions that are ongoing and dealt with through GPs and other community care providers.

An issue of compliance

With more employers looking to retain the skills and knowledge of older employers, there are believed to be significant implications for HR and their attitudes to health promotion and support for people with long-term conditions.

Under the 2010 Equality Act, many employees with long-term illnesses are considered to be ‘disabled’ and need to be treated in ways that avoid claims of discrimination.

Chronic health conditions are also more likely to affect younger age groups. The Health Foundation research has pointed to how the number of people in the 20-69 year-old age category with a major illness rose by more than 25% between 2010 and 2020.

Early interventions count

EAPA UK Chair, Karl Bennett said: “People are living longer and working longer in countries around the world — a fact that should be celebrated, and something that is proving of great value for many employers as they struggle to retain talent and experience. Chronic illnesses are booming more common, with many more people needing to deal with the needs for ongoing health treatments and management, not only those in older age groups.

“HR and employers have an important role to play in achieving a workable balance, helping people to stay in work and contribute for was long as possible without feeling the negative effects of employees being off work with long-term sickness.

“That means pro-active health promotion and support at all stages of people’s careers, early interventions around concerns relating to issues such as mental health — and a constant awareness of the strong relationships between mental and physical health. Making sure staff are in a good place mentally is always a foundation for helping people avoid physical health problems over time.”