Employers who address stress in the workplace through better benefits and company practices are gaining a competitive edge in retaining and attracting talent, says Mr Andrew Stocker of MetLife Gulf.
Modern life in the Gulf is infused with a competitive spirit, which drives both healthy professional competition and occupational challenges. In our ‘always-on’ digital culture, personal health and wellness are no longer individual concerns – they are precious resources to employers as well as employees, and determinants of their mutual success.
Unfortunately, stress is getting the best of modern workers. Corporations often place the onus on workers to improve the bottom line at the cost of the workers’ personal health. Employees are equally pressured in their personal lives, where our connected lifestyles and personal financial pressures create additional stress that impacts workplace performance. For example, MetLife found that 75% of UAE workers are distracted at work by financial stress.
Employers who want to attract new employees and who value existing ones cannot afford to overlook these concerns. In 2019, MetLife found that 60% of UAE employees are under ‘high stress’ – almost double the 35% global benchmark – and 83% of UAE employees claim they are overwhelmed. Now, the burden of selected stress-related illnesses on the UAE health system is estimated at $698m per annum, according to a study conducted by Asia Care Group.
Turning the workplace into a wellness opportunity
Fortunately, the workplace itself provides opportunities for employers to reduce employee stress, increase employee engagement, and help employees position themselves for long-term well-being and success. In fact, employers who address stress in the workplace through better benefits and workplace practices are realising competitive advantages. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that for every dollar companies spend on awareness of mental health, they save $4 (AED14.68) in lost productivity. MetLife’s UAE employee benefit trends study found that company leaders and stakeholders are either interested in or highly satisfied with programmes for preventative care, stress management, fitness and nutrition.
The impacts of modern stress
Historically, stress itself has served a fundamental purpose – survival. But while our ancestors’ stress helped them escape predators, modern stress can affect our long-term health without us even realising it. That is because the things that cause our stress are not short moments of mortal danger, but long exposures to societal and personal problems that impact our daily lives. According to the Mayo Clinic, the long-term activation of the stress-response system and the overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones that follows can disrupt almost all your body’s processes. This puts you at increased risk of many health problems, including anxiety, depression, digestive problems, headaches, heart disease, sleep problems, weight gain, [and both] memory and concentration impairment.
Stress stakes new claims on our lives
Although stress is nothing new, constant access to technology has introduced new varieties of stress that creep into our personal lives. Finances are among the leading causes of personal stress. According to a MetLife study, 39% of UAE workers had taken unexpected time off in the past 12 months to deal with a financial issue. And since myriad aspects of our personal, financial, and professional lives are connected via technology, stress is often the price we pay for that connectivity. In fact, among UAE workers distracted by financial stress, the levels of stress are much higher among younger employees, who are more likely to be highly active online.
MetLife found that workplace stress compounds concerns over personal finance and health management, driving negative outcomes for employees’ work lives as well. Unsurprisingly, nearly two-thirds of employers and nearly three-quarters of employees have expressed interest in stress management programmes in the workplace.
But while employers depend entirely on their employees to perform, employees are not getting the support from employers they need to do so. Recently, leading Dubai psychologists found that workplace stress was the number one reason cited by people reaching out for their help, and demand for such services is growing. “Stress levels are concerningly high in the UAE, where over half of stressed employees are generally disengaged in the workplace,” said MetLife Gulf health & wellbeing lead Nancy Mourad. “Fortunately, reducing stressors can increase employee engagement significantly; employers must decide how they will contribute to that end.”
The impact of employee stress on your business
The better we understand stress, the clearer it becomes that traditional attitudes towards managing it – namely, ‘powering through it’ or ‘toughing it out’ – are simply bad for the bottom line. Recently, the WHO took a bold step towards acknowledging work-related stress as a health issue by adding “burnout” to its International Classification of Diseases. Burnout is defined as a “syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”, which, among other problems, leads to both “feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job and reduced professional efficacy”.
The data appears to be on their side, and it reinforces a business need for solving workplace stress issues. Recent findings from Gallup and the CDC show that poor mental health among employees erodes profits, lowers employee engagement, increases turnover, hurts customer service, and drives up employers’ healthcare costs. Shockingly, employees who suffer from burnout cost their employers 34% of their annual salary as a result. And since stress does not discriminate, even companies well-loved by their employees are at risk – 77% of US employees have experienced burnout at their current jobs, even though 87% claim they are passionate about what they do, according to Harvard Business Review.
Counteracting stress for better employee productivity and engagement
Employers who take an active approach to employee wellness can improve productivity and build a welcoming workplace that will attract the top talent of tomorrow’s workforce. Stress management – now a top employee insurance benefit request – can become a new driver and measure of workforce ROI.
“Businesses need to invest more in their biggest asset – their employees. Mental health affects an employee’s work, both in terms of quality and quantity… Businesses need to create a positive work culture, one that values its staff and encourages key qualities such as motivation and ambition. And employers need to be able to spot the signs and develop tangible and realistic support programmes for their employees,” said Dubai’s Priory Wellbeing Centre counselling psychologist Tanya Dharamshi.
Smart employers are taking a first step by creating an environment that builds employees’ resilience rather than burdens them and improves their quality of life. To do so, employers must re-engineer workplace culture to focus on employee well-being, positioning individual employees as the primary strategic priority. Part of doing so is motivating employees from a position of encouragement and enhancement and aligning employee well-being and satisfaction with broader organisational goals.
Four pillars for employee well-being and success
Employers need bold solutions that challenge the status quo approach to employee well-being. That means formalising their approach with the same rigour they apply to their most critical strategic initiatives. The employee benefits experts at MetLife have identified four pillars employers can adopt to better understand employee stress, improve employee health, and boost productivity and engagement.
- Know the impact of stress. Employers need practical measures to identify risk factors for stress. Health risk assessments help managers visualise the broad impact of stress on their workforce, for example. Employers should also consider working with outside resources to optimise these efforts.
- Support employees with their workloads. Whether they realise it or not, employees may lack resources they need to make work more manageable and more equitable for both them and their employers. Managers should coordinate with their employees to establish realistic project timelines; employees should be able to take time to recover from rigorous assignments as well.
- Reinforce work-life balance. The onus for establishing work-life balance should not fall entirely on employees. Employers should support employees in this effort by providing them with opportunities to disengage. This may mean more flexibility with time away from the office, but also daily opportunities to manage personal stress that might impact performance.
- Extend support beyond the workplace. Business success is intrinsically tied to the personal success of a company’s employees. Employers who embrace a holistic relationship with employees are well positioned to realise these benefits. Find opportunities to support employees with personal financial planning, wellness programmes and assistance programmes that create a more equitable, long-term relationship.
Start with an honest and formal discussion with employees, followed by an exploration of potential solutions. By realigning workplace culture with employee well-being and success, leading companies can achieve a competitive edge. M
Mr Andrew Stocker is head of employee benefits at MetLife Gulf. His portfolio includes the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. Across the Gulf region, Mr Stocker has responsibility for the business P&L, sales, underwriting, business planning and strategy, portfolio analytics and health wellness strategies.