Today’s Overly-Stressed Workforce: Part 1
Bridge by Instructure conducted a survey of more than 1,000 office employees across the country to assess their habits in the workplace, including how much time they spend on non-work-related tasks and what hacks they use to deal with work-related stress. The survey also sought to gauge people’s attitudes toward their work and company’s culture, including how engaged they are and satisfaction levels with work-life balance.
The American workplace is increasingly integrated into people’s lives, and as such, it’s becoming harder for employees to fully unplug and decompress. We are now seeing the consequences of this increased demand on employee time and attention. Troublingly, employers may not be providing the right tools or creating the right atmosphere to help employees achieve the work-life balance they need to reach full productivity and engagement. This can lead to employees being more distracted and turning to different hacks to cope with stress while growing less satisfied with their jobs.
In today’s workplace, employees are encouraged to adopt a less-balanced lifestyle as a way to progress in their careers. In fact, 78 percent said working more was at least a moderately important factor in getting promoted. Rather than being encouraged to spend time to unwind once done at the office, 50 percent of respondents said socializing outside of work is an important factor in scaling the ranks. If they don’t follow these unspoken company rules, it may be harder for them to get ahead; 53 percent of respondents said that “engaging in workplace politics” was at least a moderately important factor in receiving a promotion. In addition, 43 percent of respondents said that “acting interested in a superior's dumb story” is at least moderately important for career advancement.
Perhaps not surprisingly, employees are spending a good chunk of their time at the office not working. The survey found that, on average, employees spend up to 77 minutes per day watching non-work-related TV or online videos while at work. Calculating that with the average hourly wage, companies can lose up to $34 per employee per day, or more than $8,800 per employee per year, because employees are busy watching videos. At a company with 5,000 employees, this number could grow to be as much as $44 million per year. The loss of revenue due to lack of productivity may even be more severe, as employees also reported being unproductive for more than a quarter of their day (26 percent).
Since many of today’s employees are overworked, overstressed and under-rested, many experience an element of burnout or disengagement with their work. In fact, forty-five percent of respondents are only “somewhat satisfied” with their current job in comparison to their overall career aspirations. Similarly, 44 percent are “somewhat satisfied” with their current job in comparison to the opportunities available at their companies. These statistics unveil opportunities for companies to improve mapping out employee career paths and detailing available internal opportunities for growth. Providing these professional development experiences may increase employee satisfaction rates.
However, many employees are often not given the chance to discuss their careers with their managers because they spend very little time together. The survey found that 25 percent of respondents have one-on-one meetings with their managers bi-annually or less. This statistic surprised me and showed me that when it comes to talent management and workplace performance, there is a lot of work to be done.
To change, companies can provide a feedback loop in which managers have frequent one-on-one meetings with employees to help them map out their career aspirations, which will further improve employee satisfaction and engagement. Creating a workplace culture in which employees aren’t grappling with excessive stress and have opportunities to unplug not only improves employee well-being, but can eliminate potential revenue losses by ensuring employees are replenished and ready to focus on their work.
In part two of this series, I’ll go over some workplace habits and hacks employees can use to help them perform their best at work.
