Chronic stress inflicts many impacts on employees, management, processes, collaboration and of course the bottom line. Further, relating to the focus of this venue, numerous studies have confirmed how chronic stress contributes to the development of Musculoskeletal Disorders.
A recently published research study yields actionable new insights into employee attitudes and trends including how employee stress has become more acute “now”, in some areas even higher than during the most-uncertain early days of the Pandemic.
Extensive new research was just published by Aflac Insurance in the “2022-2023 Aflac WorkForces Report“, which examined employee attitudes and trends through surveys, conducted by Kantar, capturing responses from more than 2000 employees and 1,200 employers across the United States in various industries.
Reported in this most-recent research, we discover some of the findings include:
- Burnout is real and has a negative effect not only on mental health, but also on job performance.
- Employees are facing a mental health crisis, and employers are feeling the impact.
- The economic downturn is putting greater financial stress on employees, especially younger generations.
- Myths about employees’ financial well-being persist among their employers.
- Cost increases have a financial and emotional effect on employees, as well as their employers.
From the new research report: “Unsurprisingly, in the last two years, responses largely reflected the historic period of volatility driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this year, with COVID-19 on the decline and the economy seemingly making a comeback, things appeared to be looking up. But then inflation began to rise, and economic pundits everywhere began whispering about a looming worldwide recession.“
Delving into some pressure points including the numbers, we see:
- 72% of employers in 2022 state that their benefits costs increased in the past year which is up from 2021's number of 60%.
- Most employees have experienced at least one negative financial impact due to high medical costs.
- More than half (59%) of all American workers are experiencing at least moderate levels of burnout. This is 9 percentage points higher than what was self-reported in 2021 and 2 percentage points higher than in August 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The overwhelming majority (86%) of employees who report high levels of burnout also have suffered other mental health challenges in the past year — most commonly anxiety, depression and trouble sleeping.
- In 2022, 46% of employees reported their mental health has negatively affected job performance.
- More than half (57%) of all American workers report suffering high levels of anxiety about health care costs beyond what their insurance covers. This worry is particularly common among Hispanics, Gen Z and millennials.
- The positive news is that more than half (57%) of employees believe their organizations care about their overall well-being at least a moderate amount, which is a strong foundation of goodwill for employers to build upon. This sentiment is strongest among those with a hybrid work environment.
For all of the important reasons, we all want our employees to have a comfortable, positive, productive and safe experience while working on their computer whether it be in the office or home-office.
Clearly, physical comfort, stress and fatigue each inexorably impact feelings contributing to psychological wellbeing.
Mitigating ergonomic risks can be surprisingly straightforward using evidence-based science and methods, however, desired outcomes aren’t achieved unless the prescriptive guidance is forged into enduring improved behaviors. It’s also clear from reading articles authored by doctors who caution that duration is also a serious threat here where the duration they’re referring to is the time that the unhealthful behaviors are permitted to continue.
Ergonomics Best Practices
At many times throughout our lives, each of us encounter situations where we’ll greatly benefit from improving our behaviors. Specifically regarding employees working on computers, we understand, guided by more than 40 years of evidence-based science, that to work comfortably, safely and most productively we need to conduct our behaviors in known healthful ways including:
- working at the computer using neutral postures,
- moving about periodically while working, stretching if possible to break up static postures, and
- providing brief recovery time, periodically while working, to allow our bodies time to reoxygenate cells, provide much-needed nutrients and remove metabolic waste products from muscles and soft tissues.
One fact gleaned from the evidence-based science over the past 40 years includes that “people working on computers who are not using neutral postures, not moving about periodically and not providing recovery time” are likely to develop discomfort and, left unmitigated, eventual reportable MSDs.
This is of particular concern as it’s been well-established how employees working in poor ergonomic conditions with discomfort and high stress are significantly higher consumers of healthcare services and have higher incidence of health issues including musculoskeletal disorders long before an injury case. What’s more concerning is that healthcare over-utilization is by no means confined to traditionally perceived high-risk groups.
A number of major studies have been published, over the past decade, which have examined this topic with many thousands of employees at multiple employers. An example study “Work Loss, Healthcare Utilization, and Costs among US Employees with Chronic Pain” (Disease Management & Health Outcomes, Volume 13, pp. 201-208(8)), studied thousands of full-time employees and the annual total costs experienced for medical, pharmacy and productivity.
