Workplace stress means employees take more sick days off.

An ongoing joint US-Canada study has found that workplaces are generally unhealthy emotional environments.

The cross border survey of 2000 respondents by Mental Health America (MHA) and the Canadian Association for Mental Health (CAMH) reveals that a majority of employees feel very insecure in the workplace, and

• -Sixty-seven percent reported that they feel their company might fire them at any time.
• -Eighty-three percent reported that their company is overly focused on trivial activities.
• -Because of unhelpful or hostile work environments, 80 percent report that they tend to work alone.

Despite the difficulties they face, 41 percent of people in unhealthy work environments report that rarely or never miss work due to work related stress.  The report does not indicate if this latter finding is related to the fact that they feel insecure in their jobs, and taking sick leave might further jeopardize their employment.

“As someone who was retaliated against after blowing the whistle on a corrupt executive, I have firsthand knowledge of the devastating effects of an unhealthy workplace,” said Andrew Faas, founder of The Faas Foundation which is supporting the study by CAMH and MHA.

Take the survey here

A Swedish study in 2011 also found that stress from conflicts at work, whether with colleagues or a superior resulted in employees taking more sick days.

In that study, employees were asked about their workplace experience with discrimination, bullying, sexual or other harassment, unpleasant or uncomfortable tasks, tasks for which they felt they not skilled enough or which they, for other reasons, they wish they could get out of performing, any of which created a more stressful work situation than usual.

That study found the likelihood employees would take sick days was 4.68 times higher when they also felt exposed to problems with colleagues and 3.63 times higher when they had problems with a superior. It also found employees would call in sick more often when they knew they would be faced with a stressful situation during that day.

Another more recent study (2015) which appeared in BMC Public Health looked at the effects of job insecurity on health. While having no job was known to have a detrimental affect on health, this study found that while, overall, having a job was “healthier” than no job,  having an insecure position was as unhealthy as not having a job.

The research noted that in several previous studies it was consistently found that joblessness is linked to poorer self-rated health, mental illness, more physical complaints, an increased risk for coronary heart diseases and higher all-cause mortality. Hereafter, unemployment is recognized as a crucial hazard, whereas paid work is generally known to be potentially health promoting, since it offers financial security, daily time structures and social inclusion as well as the development of personal identities.

The study found that particularly insecure employment constitutes a major work-related stressor that is related to poor self-rated health, increased psychiatric morbidity, high cholesterol, hypertension, and increased incident coronary heart disease, especially over longer tiem periods.

My hope is that it will result in greater awareness for employees, c-suite executives, board of directors and all those who are responsible for creating and sustaining healthy work environments”,  said Andrew Faas.