Stressful Work Environments Are Making Your Employees Quit

Stressful Work Environments Are Making Your Employees Quit December 12, 2017Leave a comment

It’s well documented that stressful work environments have a profound impact on player’s mental, physical, and even emotional health– as well as impacting their engagement and productivity in the workplace. What hasn’t traditionally been tracked (despite it needing to be) is how many employees are driven out vs. sticking it out in stressful environments- until now.

 

A recent study from Monster reveals truly how many employees are just saying no to toxic or stressful work environments and are seeking jobs elsewhere.

 

This study, aptly named the ‘International Workplace Stress Study,’ took the time to reach out to over 1,000 job seekers that are in the Monster database. The results were astounding. The study revealed that 42% of US respondents left a job due to a high-stress environment. Not only that, but these respondents stated ‘I have purposely changed jobs due to a stressful work environment.’

 

42% of US workers have changed jobs intentionally due to stress. That’s a sobering thought. Additionally, 35% of respondents said they have thought about leaving a job because of a stressful working environment.

 

This seems like an alarmingly high number, but why do we see these high numbers in the American workforce in the first place? What is that US organizations are doing to change these environments? The study from Monster reports that 55% of people in the US have very stressful lives and 57% of people are dealing with stressful work environments- more than half of the people surveyed answered with this!

 

It’s not just the US, either. In fact, France and the UK experience the highest levels of stress in the workplace- 48% of people responded that they had left a job due to stress.

 

On the opposite side of the coin, workers in India are the least likely to leave a job due to stress. Only 19% of respondents in India report leaving a job because it was too stressful.

 

What Adds to a Stressful Work Environment?

 

So, the workforce is stressed out- what are the reasons? Let’s take a deeper dive into the data:

 

40% say supervisor relationship

39% say workload/amount of work

34% say work/life balance and;

31% say coworker relationships.

 

The data also had a few surprises along the way:

 

84% of people say stressful work environments have impacted their personal lives.

26% say they have sleepless nights over it.

24% report depression.

21% say they have family or relationship issues

19% are combating physical ailments

 

The survey asked participants what their office has done to combat or alleviate stress in the workplace:

 

13% say extra time off

11% say the ability to work from home

66% report nothing, sadly

 

These figures may seem shockingly high, but they should come as no surprise- especially when you take all of the data that backs up and validates all of the work/life balance challenges Americans face into consideration. Even though it shouldn’t come as a surprise, that doesn’t mean that we should normalize pushing employees to their limits and fostering stressful work environments.

 

It’s time for a new normal- what is your organization doing to combat stressful work environments?

 

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