Are You Cheerful at Work?

The latest CIPD/Halogen Employee Outlook survey asking over 2,000 UK employees about their health and well-being at work, found 29% said that work has made them feel cheerful most or all of the time, as opposed to any other feeling. Additionally, 19 % of employees responding said that they were optimistic and relaxed.  However, 18% of respondents said that work makes them feel stressed, a small increase in the corresponding statistic from autumn 2016.

Furthermore, 38% of those surveyed said they were under excessive pressure at work at least once a week, increasing to 48% for those in the public sector. 31% of employees say that they often or always come home from work exhausted.

So, mixed results and stress at work is clearly an important issue for some.  In an age when we were all supposed to be taking advantage of new technologies to work less and have more leisure time, it seems ironic that stress levels are not on the way down.  Employers have been better at providing flexible working options and it would be interesting to see if there is a correlation there to the “cheerful at work” statistic.  Line managers are generally more approachable and better listeners than they were back in the day, but there is often little that they can do to change what may be by nature a pressurised working environment.

It’s good to see that many are cheerful within their daily work environment; we just need to work a bit harder to help the stressed minority.