60 percent of employers don’t pay attention to stress and burnout symptoms
Corona increases pressure on working women
More than 60% of women who have dropped out due to stress or burnout experience a great taboo when discussing complaints with their employer. Also, a majority of the women (60%) indicate that nothing was done when they made the complaints known to their employer. As a result, support often comes too late and the risk of (long-term) absenteeism is high. This is evident from new research into stress-related absenteeism among women, carried out by Motivaction on behalf of the advocacy organization WOMEN Inc. and financial services provider Aegon.
Breaking the taboo
Emma Lok, director of WOMEN Inc: “The study shows that the vast majority of women (85%) believe that you have to take care of yourself to avoid overstressing. If they experience symptoms, women do not always report sick (79%). For example, 2 out of 5 women prefer to take vacation days first. This is often accompanied by shame and guilt. A large proportion of these employees end up taking long-term sick leave. In 81% of cases, absenteeism due to stress has a clear cause. Lok: “It is important that employers know what is going on and do not see their employee only as an employee, but as someone who also has a private life. This must be discussed because, in addition to the increasing workload, the combination of work and care appears to be the main reason for burnout complaints.
Much profit to be gained
Absenteeism costs employers around 2.8 billion euros annually. Work-related stress has been the number one occupational disease for years and the numbers are increasing every year. For employers, therefore, there is much to be gained. Veronique Tilleman, Director of Income at Aegon: “Absenteeism due to stress is very clearly a shared responsibility between employer and employee. As an employer you have to focus on a preventive approach. Too often it remains to fight symptoms afterwards. We need a culture where employer and employee feel comfortable having an open conversation about this subject.
Corona increases risk of work-related stress and absenteeism
Corona can eventually cause an increasing number of women to drop out. For example, 59% indicate that corona causes a lot of tension at work and for almost half of the women it also brings about a lot of tension in their private lives. Over 40% of the women do not dare tell their manager that they cannot handle the pressure of work (possibly combined with care tasks) at the moment. While the corona crisis actually puts pressure on the work-life balance, which when disturbed often leads to work stress.
Launching the magazine on stress-related absenteeism
To help organizations get a grip on work stress, WOMEN Inc., in cooperation with Aegon and experts, is launching a one-time edition of the online magazine ‘This is how it works’, on the theme of absenteeism due to stress. The magazine includes an extensive step-by-step plan including Burn-out assessment tools, work pressure meters and guides for conducting interviews. Employers such as Philadelphia Zorg, health and safety service Perspectief, Sustainable The Hague, PostNL, ABN AMRO and Erasmus University also share their best practices.
