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May 14, 2018

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Mental Health

Work isn’t working for millennial mental health

Millennials feel most under pressure in the workplace, reveals the UK’s biggest ever stress survey released today by the Mental Health Foundation, in partnership with Mental Health First Aid England, to mark the start of Mental Health Awareness Week (14-20 May).

The UK’s biggest ever stress survey, conducted by YouGov, spoke to 4,619 people to understand the impact of stress on people’s health, relationships and working habits. The findings highlight a significant generational gap around workplace stress.

Millennials are feeling the pressure at work. Over a quarter of millennials (28%) state powering through stress is expected in their organisation’s culture, compared with just 12% of baby boomers. In addition, a further 27% often feel bothered by their stress levels during the working week as opposed to just 17% of baby boomers.

There is an increased spotlight on mental health awareness but on average, calculated across both generations, only 14% of people are comfortable speaking to a manager about their stress levels. This is despite a quarter of millennials (25%) saying they compromise their health to do their job, compared with 18% of baby boomers.

This generational divide is also highlighted through the impact of stress on workforce activity. Over a third of millennials (34%) have been less productive at work due to stress, versus only 19% of baby boomers.

Commenting on the findings, Jaan Madan, Workplace Lead at Mental Health First Aid England, said: “In recent years, huge steps have been taken to improve mental health awareness across society, including in the workplace.

“However, today’s research commissioned by the Mental Health Foundation shows that more needs to be done to translate this awareness into action, with only 14% of both millennials and baby boomers feeling comfortable speaking to their managers about stress.

“Coping with stress in the workplace starts with being able to have a conversation with your manager, and in a mentally healthy organisation everyone should feel comfortable talking about stress. Which is why Mental Health First Aid England has launched the Address Your Stress Toolkit, a free practical resource to help employers and employees identify the sources and signs of stress and take steps to help reduce the impact.”

Richard Grange, a spokesperson for the Mental Health Foundation, added: “The mental health impact of work can follow us home. A good job where we feel secure and supported can boost our mental health. But poor and insecure working conditions undermine good mental health.

“Millennials are more likely to have insecure contracts, low rates of pay and high entry-level workloads. The pressures they face in today’s employment market are very different to past generations.

“A degree, for example, was once considered the key to success. But that is no longer always the case. The more we understand about how experiences of work have changed – the less surprising it is they are experiencing high levels of stress.”

Managing Partner for Talent at Deloitte LLP, Emma Codd, commented: “Today’s survey findings indicate that stress is a growing issue for millennials in the workplace and so, as employers, it’s important that we take action to create open and healthy workplace cultures.

“At Deloitte we want to empower our people to better support their own and others’ mental health. That’s why as part of our wellbeing strategy, we are sharing the ‘Address Your Stress’ toolkit with all of our people and also committed to train one in four of our senior leaders in Mental Health First Aid skills. With this approach we want to ensure that our people feel supported and that we can always provide an open environment where people feel comfortable talking about their mental health.”

Mental Health and Wellbeing is the focus of the Occupational Health and Wellbeing Theatre at the Safety & Health Expo 2018.

Hear industry leaders share their own personal stories in the brand new Occupational Health and Wellbeing Zone, with talks on mental health, reducing stress, boosting resilience, including a discussion with Santander on how to manage psychological wellbeing for positive business outcome. Seminar topics include : ‘Health risk management approaches’, ‘Using nature-inspired design to improve office occupant health and wellbeing’ and many more debates and panels…

What makes us susceptible to burnout?

In this episode  of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.

We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.

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Dom Cooper
Dom Cooper
5 years ago

More junk science. I know this is Mental Health Awareness Week, but at least base it on proper science. MH organizations are creating a stress industry to create victims so they can make money. PTSD of serving and ex-Military is a known fact. Very little done to help them. 15% of UK suicides occur in MH facilities and HMP’s where MH experts are on hand! To go out and find seemingly new victims seems a nonsense when existing at-risk people are pretty much left to their own devices

Hayley
Hayley
5 years ago

Is there a link to more information on the data? For example, what was the age range of those sampled? If there were significantly more ‘baby boomers’ than ‘millennials’ interviewed then the story could be a very different one to what is suggested in this article.

Ian Hart
Ian Hart
5 years ago
Reply to  Hayley

Hi Hayley. According to the report, ‘YouGov surveyed 4,619 people for the Mental Health Foundation, the findings are released in partnership with Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England. Fieldwork was undertaken between 29th March – 20th April 2018. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all UK adults (aged 18+).

Millennials as defined by the American Psychological Association, are those aged between 18 and 38 and baby boomers are those aged between 53 and 71.’

Dom Cooper
Dom Cooper
5 years ago
Reply to  Ian Hart

What were the questions? How have the data been weighted? Who did the work? Did they have a financial interest? What statistical analysis was done? Who was sampled? Just too many unanswered questions for this to have validity!

Hayley
Hayley
5 years ago
Reply to  Ian Hart

Thanks Ian!