By Annie Hayes, HRZone Editor
New Year’s resolutions are always rather predictable; lose weight, drink less, be a better person etc so when I came across a survey which revealed that almost half of us are insomniacs lying awake at night worrying about work and home lives you realize that underneath the trappings of our self-afflictions lies a rather worrying picture of a society breeding stress, falling rather short of the nurturing ideal and failing to see the bigger picture.
Natural disasters like Tsunami tend to have few positives but for the very fact that they stir us from our self-obsessed slumbers they act as a good reminder of the gift of life.
Without meaning to bang on about how grateful we should all feel about our lot in life it really does start to frustrate me that organisational cultures are allowed to exist which raise our stress levels and fail to develop us to contain them.
The essence of the research by PruHealth, shows that almost half of those in employment (49%) lie awake at night worrying about their work and home lives.
Of the 2000 adults questioned, 71% claimed that working long hours damaged their health, while 68% said they reduced their productivity.
Simon Capewell, the professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Liverpool, said: “There are greater pressures on people now and greater insecurities. Lying awake at night will obviously affect someone’s energy levels, but can also make them more vulnerable to physical or mental problems.”
“People need to recognise this is common, that there is nothing shameful about it and that there are mechanisms to help them.”
Sapping energy levels is one thing but lying awake all night counting sheep without any result is something else.
So what has gone wrong?
Why have we developed organisational cultures in which we breed environments where stress is aloud to fester in this form and what can HR do about it – in essence what should our New Year’s resolution be?
I asked professional body the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) for their thoughts:
“The figures in this report seem rather misleading. The CIPD’s survey evidence shows that three out of five workers really look forward to going to work when they wake up in the morning, either all or most of the time.
“Nevertheless there are issues that should concern managers. Significant minorities responding to a CIPD survey of 1,000 UK employees published in October 2004 said that their jobs were very stressful (21%) and that they received little or no support from their supervisor (26%). These findings suggest that managers need to make significant further efforts to tackle the issues responsible for creating stress, including helping ensure that employees can achieve a satisfactory work life balance.”
I think that the issue goes deeper than this. Organisations that suffer from rising stress levels need to go back to the drawing board to examine their strategies and internal balance.
Using tools such as the trusty, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), together with benchmarking measures like the PESTLE (political, economic, social, technical, legal and environmental) and/or a portfolio analysis can only help an organisation to see the bigger picture.
Of course and as Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes say in Exploring Corporate Strategy ‘the choice of ‘good’ strategies by an organisation can only be partly guided by general principles of strategic ‘fit’ between the business environment and the resource base of organisations.’
This aside, assessing the areas of weakness and strength can only help a business move forward and if improving work/life balance, re-structuring or recruiting are found to be the solutions, then this can positively help to alleviate stress-levels within organisations.
HR Consultant Quentin Colborn told me that HR had a role to play in easing workers’ burden by improving communications:
“At an organisational level ensure that effective consultation and communication procedures exist within the organisation so that people know what’s going on and what to expect – while these may be required by law, HR should take the lead and ensure they are in place in any event.
“On an individual level, equip managers so that employees feel they are able to communicate with their bosses when they feel that work is getting on top of them with no fear of retribution.”
As part of a learning organisation improved communication channels are certainly vital. In such businesses workers can assuage concerns and worries by channelling their ideas, problems and experiences with other colleagues and it is often through these lively debates that the way forward is carved out and minds put to rest.
Sleeping easy is a resolution we should all try to keep.
HRZone invites you to share your New Year’s resolutions by posting a comment in the box below.
