Covid-19 and workplace anxiety
Can flexible work options reduce workplace anxiety in the future?
Are job insecurity and workplace demands causing a pandemic of mental health issues?
According to the NHS, in 2018/19 there were 1.6 million referrals to talking therapies through the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), this resulted in billions of pounds spent on these services. This doesn’t take into account the huge amount of money spent by individuals for private counselling sessions.
For men and women, employment has a protective effect from adverse mental health conditions, meaning that having a job can be beneficial for anxiety and depression. This could be because having a job gives meaning to their day, increases their financial potential and helps towards fulfilling their potential; full time work usually provides more money and better careers.
So, as Covid-19 has had a huge effect on job stability in certain sectors of the economy, does this mean we’re heading for a massive increase in mental distress?
For those who have managed to hold onto their jobs it would appear, from what my clients tell me, that they seem to be working longer hours than ever leaving them fatigued and stressed out and unable to ‘turn off’. Even before Covid-19 the western world was seeing higher levels of anxiety than ever.
So how can the workplace be restructured to protect employees from experiencing mental health issues which may arise from balancing a career with home life, and therefore leading to less anxiety and lowering the need for expensive and ongoing counselling sessions.
Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest taken between two deep breaths - Etty Hillesum
Women experience more anxiety than men when social roles such as being parents and working are measured (especially women without partners). Restructuring the workplace can assist these women in finding the support they need to be a valuable contribution to a business. High average levels of emotional exhaustion are associated with adverse performance at work (meaning low client satisfaction, low productivity, and high personnel costs). Flexible working hours have been taken on by many companies already by offering part time work, job shares, term-time only work (all of which is a positive step in assisting families in their work / life balance), but for lone parents a reduction in working hours does not offer a wage that can sustain a healthy standard of living. A reduction in hours creates a fundamental barrier to accessing flexible working for many men (who are often the main breadwinners) and single parents. So, it is important for companies to find a way that they can become more flexible without reducing hours and therefore, salaries. Some research (Costa et al, 2009) has found that the most favourable effects on health and psycho-social wellbeing was from flexible working hours which was employee-led rather than by formal ‘flexible’ contracts from the company, which seemed to take autonomy away and led the employee feeling s/he was under company control. These autonomous working arrangements had a clear beneficial effect on health and well-being of the employees, with positive consequences for the company.
Obviously, smaller businesses and businesses that have to have very specific working hours may find flexible working a problem as they don’t have the budget to find staff cover. Companies that can allow their employees to work remotely may find this far easier. However, the key for these smaller businesses is to provide support to their employees and to make them feel valued. The challenge for the larger companies is that most of the senior managers are men still, although this is changing (only 6.6% of Fortune 500 companies have female CEO’s) and therefore as working full time has been shown to have a positive effect on male mental health they may not see it as a priority (unless the majority of their workforce are women).
Who knows what the effects of this Coronavirus pandemic will be, but let’s hope with a flexible approach to work, it won’t lead to an anxiety pandemic, any more than we were already experiencing.
All references on research can be accessed by emailing me directly