“People’s mental health is worsening. Over the past decade, the number of people expressing stress, sadness, anxiety, anger and worry has increased, reaching the highest levels since Gallup surveys began.” — 2023/2024 Human Development Report, United Nations Development Programme
The global deterioration of mental health is worrying, and some fear it is spiralling out of control. At the start of the UN General Assembly, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said:Our world is in chaos. “
Perhaps he is being overly pessimistic. After all, we live in the best era in human history. As Harvard professor Steven Pinker famously put it, “human progress is an observable fact.”
But what if both were true? If humanity’s mental health was declining rapidly during a golden age of progress and prosperity, that would present one of the most intriguing paradoxes of our time.
Even if our collective mood hasn’t deteriorated to historic proportions, it has deteriorated enough to impact our daily lives. According to Georgetown University professor Christine Porath, rising stress has led to a spike in workplace incivility. This is especially worrying considering that, second only to sleep, we spend the majority of our lives at work.
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Latest The current state of the workplace around the world The report found that 41% of employees report experiencing “a great deal of stress.” However, stress varies greatly depending on how the organization is run. People who work in companies with poor management practices (actively leaving employees) are 60% more likely to be stressed than those who work in environments with good management practices (active employees). In fact, employees who work in companies with poor management practices are 30% more likely to report experiencing “a great deal of stress” than unemployed people.
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Leaders know that workplace stress is a problem—they’ve seen the data, heard from their colleagues, and experienced it themselves. A quarter of leaders feel burned out often or all the time, and two-thirds feel burned out at least sometimes. Many are trying to address the problem, often ineffectively.
Popular solutions include wellbeing apps and stress management training, but a recent study from Oxford University found that there is “little evidence to support the benefits of these interventions and minimal signs of harm.” While mindfulness apps and meditation can be effective for individuals, they can backfire in poorly managed workplaces or those with a negative culture.
In other words, a meditation app can’t fix a bad manager.
So what’s more effective? “Organizational-level initiatives such as improved schedule changes, management techniques, staff resources, and customized job design,” according to a University of Oxford study. In other words, organizations need better management techniques.
The world’s workplaces can play a key role in addressing the global mental health crisis. State of the Global Workplace: 2024 ReportTo reduce a lot of unnecessary stress in the workplace, it’s important to change your management approach.
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