You're Probably Stressing Out Your Employees

Four critical factors in a person’s well-being are health, money, work and life, says a new study from Fidelity Investments. The study, conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Stanford Center on Longevity and Cornell University, was designed to provide insight on the overall well-being of American workers and to identify ways in which those factors are connected.

“When it comes to total well-being programs, employers have traditionally focused on health but have recently expanded their efforts to include financial wellness…. The next step for employers is to account for their wellness at work and in life, as these are two critical dimensions of overall well-being that shouldn’t be omverlooked,” Jeanne Thompson, head of Global Insights and Health Care Marketing for Fidelity’s Workplace business, says in a statement.

Thompson adds, “Taking a holistic view of financial  and health wellness, in addition to work and life, provides a more complete assessment of employee well-being, which can help employers provide the right benefits to the right person at the right time.”

Each of those four factors is made up of a range of issues. For health, it’s both physical and mental health, as well as healthy (or not) behaviors. For money, it’s debt, savings, insurance and budgeting. For work, it’s work/life balance, career status and opportunities as well as burnout. For life, it’s personal satisfaction, sense of purpose, sources of stress and relationships.

Respondents to the survey were scored on each factor, and those who received an overall score of 61 or higher were considered “well,” while those with 60 or below were considered “unwell.” The scary part is that although 77% of respondents were considered “well” overall, 68% were “unwell” in at least one factor.

The worst was money, in which 42% were considered “unwell.” One third were graded “unwell” in the life category, with 30% saying they’re frequently stressed, and in the health category, just 12% came out as “unwell” despite the fact that 39% say they struggle not to be so sedentary.

In the work category, although 63% were considered “well,” 24% said they struggled with limited career growth opportunities and 27% are dealing with burnout.

But the biggest stressors are work and finances, the report says, with 98% saying they’ve felt stressed in the last few months. The job itself was the top stressor, with 47% saying they have high levels of stress. Saving for the future was next, at 34%; paying off debt was an issue for 33% and weight stressed 30% of respondents.

Employers should take note that of the stressors reported, employee debt is linked to lower productivity at work, the report says. Employees with the highest levels of debt have twice the absenteeism of those with the lowest levels of debt, and miss an additional full week of work more when comparing the two groups.

Different types of debt have different effects, too, with past-due medical bills being the leading indicator of workplace absenteeism; one out of eight workers say they’re struggling with unpaid medical bills. But it goes further: 84% of those with unpaid medical bills are financially unwell and two thirds don’t get enough sleep. Those workers also miss an average of three additional days of work each year.

Surprisingly, student loans and credit card debt turned out not to be a significant cause of employees missing work.

All that stress over debt weighs on employee health, too; only 14% of workers battling debt challenges say they’re in “excellent” health, compared with 35% of workers who aren’t mired in debt. They’re also notably less likely to get enough sleep (35%, compared with 54%) and are markedly more likely to be frequently stressed or anxious (46%, compared with 26%).

And poor health correlates to poor financial health, the survey finds; in fact, just 4% of employees with poor health ratings also got strong financial scores, while 60% of those who score “well” for health are also financially well