Positive mental health in employees down 14% says survey

Positive mental health in employees has fallen 14%, according to a new poll by software company GetApp.

Surveying over 1,000 UK employees in companies with under 250 staff across a range of industries, analysts found 52% of participants reported either good or excellent mental health in February 2022, down from 66% pre-pandemic.

However, 29% of respondents did identify improvements to their work-life balance.

David Jani, content analyst for GetApp UK, told Working Dads: “The COVID-19 pandemic has been hugely disruptive to everyday life, and workplace mental health has suffered partially as a result of that. HR teams should be especially vigilant about the fact that 19% of our sample reported that catching COVID-19 at work is now a major workplace stressor, joining more commonplace irritants such as increased workloads and lack of support from a manager.”

Employees reported a range of stress and mental health symptoms that have emerged due to work, affecting them both physically and cognitively.

One of the most common of was problems sleeping, which nearly a third (31%) of our participants said they had experienced, followed by constant worrying, reported by 28%.

Although 39% of respondents said they hadn’t experienced any of the asked-about symptoms as a result of work tasks, more than half (61%) reported suffering at least one.

Even more worryingly, 14% experienced feelings of being out of control and 10% felt unable to perform daily tasks.

At Working Dads we consistently advocate for the fact that maintaining good workplace mental health conditions for employees can save businesses thousands if not millions of pounds per year. Small Business Minister Paul Scully calculated poor mental health costs employers between £33 billion and £42 billion a year.

Not only that, but he estimated employee mental health problems within the workforce cost the entire UK economy between £74 billion and £99 billion annually.

Read more:

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