Employers urged to ensure staff feel comfortable speaking up – and that wellbeing programmes do not ‘phase out people inadvertently’
Men are regularly working around the clock, potentially sacrificing their health in the process, research released to coincide with Men’s Health Week has discovered.
The study by Lee Hecht Harrison Penna found that more than half of men are regularly putting in at least half an hour of extra work a day, with 52 per cent turning up to the office early and 63 per cent staying late.
Meanwhile, almost one in five (19 per cent) confessed they take work home at least once a week and 16 per cent said they are stressed on a daily basis.
“Our research has shown men are not allowing themselves to take a step back and switch off from work, which can cause issues down the line,” said Nick Goldberg, chief executive of UK & Ireland for Lee Hecht Harrison Penna. “With our working life and private life becoming increasingly integrated, negativity and unhappiness at work can easily spill over and become all consuming.”
This is far from the first time a survey has warned that staff, of both genders, are regularly burning the midnight oil. Research released by the Trades Union Congress in February revealed employers snagged the equivalent of £33.6bn of free work from unpaid overtime in 2016.
Meanwhile, a CIPD study released in April said that around a third (32 per cent) of all employees felt the introduction of flexible working now meant they could not switch off, while nearly a fifth (18 per cent) said being constantly connected to the office made them feel like they were under surveillance.
Dr Jill Miller, policy adviser – diversity and inclusion at the CIPD, noted that the “rise of technology” had left many employees in an always-on state and stressed employers needed to make sure their staff felt comfortable discussing their concerns.
“Some people might be reluctant to talk about it in case their commitment is doubted. So if you go in and say, ‘Look, my workload is too high. I’m working in the evenings,’ you don’t know whether somebody’s going to say, ‘Well, loads of people are working in the evenings’ and then you feel a bit silly,” she said.
Meanwhile, Professor Sir Cary Cooper, 50th Anniversary professor of organisational psychology and health at Manchester Business School and president of the CIPD, told People Management: “The email culture is causing enormous difficulty. We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so, if you say, ‘Let’s abolish all work technology outside of office hours’, how do you get flexible working?...But we have to have rules [and] most organisations don’t have rules. Don’t send an email to somebody in the same building area. Don’t send an email to one of your subordinates unless it’s absolutely essential outside of office hours, certainly not when they’re on holiday. You need to have rules on this.”
Miller also urged employers to examine their wellbeing offerings to make sure they were gender inclusive. “We need to look at the phrasing of it to make sure we’re not phasing out people inadvertently,” she added.
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