Employee Stress Levels Are Rising – What Are You Doing?

Stress is wreaking havoc on the day-to-day lives of your employees. How do we know? Retail Trust a national UK charity has reported a sharp increase in calls from retail staff experiencing stress, depression and financial worries.

According to Retail Trust, its helpline is taking 25% more of such calls than three months ago. The free and confidential service available to all retail employees also recorded a steep upsurge in calls requesting information about redundancy.

This is not simply a UK trend. In fact according to the Georgia Crisis and Access Line, they have seen a significant increase in calls related to economic stressors by identifying key words used in conversations including mortgage, foreclosure, loan problem, and debt.  From July to September, there was a 64 percent increase in the number of calls to the state hot line referring to financial crisis compared to the same months two years ago.

As well, new survey data show more than half of Americans report irritability or anger, fatigue and sleeplessness and almost half say they self-medicate by overeating or indulging in unhealthy foods.

Money and the economy continue to top the list of stressors for at least 80 percent of those surveyed.

These statistics are not surprising. So what is your company doing to help you manage these stressors? After all in the age of employee engagement, companies must remember that declines in engagement levels can have a significant bottom line impact. Just think about it for a moment. Not only does stress cost billions of dollars in lost work days, but more importantly one stressed-out employee can significantly impact the internal office morale and your external brand.

Our advice: think of tools and resources that you can provide to your employees it will not only help you, but more importantly it will help bring important health benefits to your employee!