Page 8 - Mar-Apr2019

Insurance UPDATE

Provided by
morneau shepell

workplace and personal stress

increases while sense of stigma declines

orkplace stress is on the rise and employees are compared to five years ago.
Wfeeling the pressure, according to new research “In recent years, organizations have evolved to
announced in January by Morneau Shepell. In a prioritize employee well-being and management of
survey of employees and employers across Canada, workplace stress, yet reports of stress continue to
the company found that more than one third of increase,” said Stephen Liptrap, president and chief
employees report that they are more stressed now executive officer. “This is cause for concern as stress is
from work and personal issues than they were five now contributing to a decline in employees’ physical
years ago. In the workplace, one quarter (27 percent) and mental well-being. In addition to mental health
of employees rated their stress from work issues such as depression and anxiety, we found that
"...improvements during the last six months as high to employees suffering from high levels of workplace
have been made as extreme, compared to 34 percent among stress are also more likely to suffer from issues such
people managers. as physical pain and sleep troubles.”
a result of changes According to the research, one of the
main contributors to stress today is an Sense of stigma associated with mental health issues
in workplace increased feeling of workplace isolation decreases
approaches to – the state of feeling alone and without Despite the increase in workplace stress, the
friends, support or help. Employees research found a decline in the sense of stigma
mental health." and managers reporting a high level of associated with mental health issues, demonstrating
workplace isolation are more likely to say an improvement in normalizing conversation around
they also have a high level of workplace the issue.
stress. This is concerning as approximately one in While two thirds of employees report that they
six employees reported a high to extreme feeling would be concerned their career options would be
of isolation at work during the previous six months, limited if their workplace was aware of their mental
with one in four employees and managers reporting
increased feelings of isolation at work when Insurance Updated continued on page 20...

8 LBMAO Reporter - March-April 2019 www.lbmao.on.ca