Worker well-being plummets amid stressors: report

New York — Worker well-being is “dramatically lower” than in past years, as stress levels related to economic and other concerns remain on the rise, a recent report reveals.

For its 13th annual “Mind, Body, and Wallet” report, life insurance company GuardianLife surveyed more than 4,000 workers and individuals who make decisions about employee benefits.

Findings show that 36% of respondents rated their emotional health as “excellent” or “very good” – down from 49% in 2016. Additionally, 24% reported an increase in anxiety, depression or other mental health needs in the past two years, while only 34% indicated they had a satisfactory work-life balance.

Overall, the number of workers who reported job-related burnout climbed 33% in the past year.

“Certain segments of workers tend toward particularly high and particularly low well-being across mental, physical and financial health,” the report states. “In general, the younger the worker, the worse off they are emotionally.”

The report shows that 23% of the respondents in Generation Z said their emotional health was “excellent” or “very good” compared with 32% of all respondents. Further, only 23% of workers who also act as caregivers reported the same, compared with 33% of non-caregivers. The same was true for women (29%) compared with men (42%) and single parents (26%) versus married ones (35%).

The report encourages “thinking about well-being not in separate siloes but considering how they intersect.”

Other guidance for employers:

• Connect whole-person care for cancer patients.
• Provide parents with access to benefits that support all stages of raising a child.
• Extend multifaceted benefits to caregivers.
• Offer support for grief beyond bereavement leave.