October 26, 2022Employers are most concerned about levels of stress and anxiety across their staff demographics, according to new research from GRiD, the industry body for the group risk protection sector.
The baby boomer generation is the only demographic where employers believe their ‘lack of fitness’ is the biggest detriment to their health and wellbeing.
As employers have many different generations in their workforce, GRiD is hoping employers find a way to ‘cater to all different needs’, ensuring that any health and wellbeing benefits they offer meet the requirements of the entire workforce.
GRiD’s research reveals the major concerns that employers have for different demographics within their workforce:
Gen Z (aged up to 26)
Employers’ biggest concern regarding the health and wellbeing of their Gen Z employees is around stress and anxiety related to finances and debt, with 29% of employers highlighting this as an issue for this group who are relatively new to the world of work.
Millennials / Generation Y (aged 27-45)
Millennials are also most on employers’ minds in relation to stress and anxiety about finances and debt, with 35% of employers believing this to be their biggest burden.
Gen X (aged 46-57)
The biggest worry employers have for Gen X is stress related to work, with 36% of employers having concerns.
Baby boomers (aged 58-76)
The baby boomer generation ‘bucks’ the trend, with 39% of employers most concerned about their general lack of fitness caused by a non-active lifestyle. As many of the baby boomer generation remain committed to working for longer than expected following the removal of the default retirement age, it’s important this need is addressed, according to GRiD.
While GRiD believes that it is important to acknowledge the differences in the generations, when it comes to employee benefits, the industry body strongly advises employers to provide support across all four areas of financial, physical, mental and social health for all generations.
In addition to individual challenges that employees face, there are constant external challenges that impact health and wellbeing, from political and economic uncertainty to pressures on the NHS, and each will affect individuals in different ways, so GRiD highlights the importance of supporting ‘all pillars of wellbeing’.
Katharine Moxham, spokesperson for GRiD, says: “It’s unlikely that even just a decade or so ago, employers would have been so acutely aware of the mental health needs of their workforce. However, it’s important that employers’ concerns around stress and anxiety on behalf of their staff doesn’t mask other health issues that also require support such as living with long-term chronic conditions or pressures relating to home life including caring responsibilities.
“Although statistics can predict generalisations for an entire workforce, they can’t forecast which issues might impact an individual employee and what support they might need. By ensuring employee benefits cover all areas of health and wellbeing – financial, physical, mental and social – no employee will be left lacking in their hour of need.
“Group risk benefits (employer-sponsored life assurance, income protection and critical illness) have long included support for all areas of wellbeing and, as they are generationally equitable, they are a great help to for employers looking at how best to support all their employees.”
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Mmmm, nothing new about modern day work-stressors with three decades or more since employees, like, you know, people with names, became Hooman Resources and “digital assistant data processors” having to cope, tolerate persevere and adapt to standard, out of the box, sub-optimally calibrated display screen equipment.
Then, in 2007, a meta analysis of operator-equipment occupational health risks was commissioned by HSE the “Better Display Screen RR 561” that turned out to evidence that, in fact, the UK 1993 DSE Regulations were completely ineffective and did little or nothing to prevent or mitigate harm or injury to the majority (58%) of equipment operators.
https://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr561.pdf
Just a pity the 1995 DDA and 1998 PUWER Act were expediently ignored along with other occupational health regulations going back to 1974 anyway, following the 2016 WHO International Classification of Diseases (10th revision) we do now have more regulation, if not legislation, to potentially improve the lot of office workers chained to their DSE for much, much longer than an “hour a day” over-exposed to close-up sub-optimally calibrated, the “reasonably adjustments / accommodations” required to protect and mitigate, visually and/or physically repetitive stress injuries, ideally an “ergonomically calibrated display screen” to prevent / mitigate early onset of predictable / foreseeable MSD’s from debilitating eye-strain, binocular vision stress, blurred or worse double vision, dizziness, nausea, migraine to WRULD’s and other MSK’s….
https://icd.who.int/browse10/2016/en#/H53.1
Maybe apart from 2018 UK Accessibility Regulations, ISO 45001 “Work Exposure Limits”, ISO 45003, WCAG 2.1, companion ISO 30071-1 the 2021 ISO 31405 Human Resource Management Diversity and Inclusion there maybe some chance of promoting adoption of the ethos of “Doing No Harm” at long last, achieving a long awaited for balancing point between Health and Safety or the scales of justice following decades of omission.
Whether, disadvantage is preexisting and debilitating or induced disability, in this case the predictable presenteeism directly linked to Product Safety, failure to prevent or mitigate risk of over-exposure to known visual repetitive stress injuries, sufficient to increase risk of myopic / asthenopic disease and other longer latency non-communicable disease likely to be life-changing and potentially foreshorten the individuals working life-cycle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2oOcmTxzaE&list=LL&index=194&t=277s