Further to our previous article about the campaign for the introduction of a legal right to disconnect, National Stress Awareness Day 2022 will be held on the 9th November 2022.
National Stress Awareness Day 2022
National Stress Awareness Day was launched back in 1999 by the International Stress Management Association (ISMA) (UK) to highlight the problem of stress, including in the workplace. National Stress Awareness Day 2022 will be held on the 9th November 2022, and forms part of International Stress Awareness Week which will run from the 7th - 11th November 2022.
CIPD Report
The need for a National Stress Awareness Day has been highlighted by recent research. In its Health and Wellbeing at Work 2022 report, for instance, the the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) stated that: "Over the last few years our findings have shown that presenteeism takes place in almost all organisations. This year’s evidence shows that it remains prevalent, although it is more commonly observed among employees who work at home than among employees in the workplace. Encouragingly, [there is] an increase in the proportion of organisations taking steps to address ‘presenteeism’ over the last few years....53% of organisations in 2022 compared with 45% in 2021 and 32% in 2020."
The CIPD report also found that mental health problems remain the biggest cause of long term absences from work, with 57% of respondents including it in their top 3 causes.
Presenteeism
As regards presenteeism, in a separate report the CIPD stated that: “With the recent increase in homeworking, digital technology has the potential to enable an ‘always on’ culture. There’s a concern that the boundaries between work and home life can be increasingly blurred, making it more difficult for many people to switch off.“
Legal Right To Disconnect
In a recent article, Carole Spiers, the Chair of ISMA (UK), who developed the idea of having a National Stress Awareness Day, stated: "In 2017, research was published from Deloitte which found that poor mental health costs UK employers up to £45bn a year, with presenteeism taking a bigger toll than absences….The research further stated that the cost associated with presenteeism was four times the costs associated with absences due to mental health."
With the CIPD confirming that presenteeism remains prevalent, the debate over whether a legal right to disconnect should be introduced in the UK is intensifying, with 50% of employers and 66% of employees supporting such a measure according to a recent survey. Indeed, the trade union, Prospect, has been campaigning for a right to disconnect to be introduced in the UK. Andrew Pakes, the research director at Prospect, contends: “Other countries have already acted to address this by bringing in a right to disconnect for workers, and we are calling on the UK government to take action now so that we are not left behind.“
Maintaining Aawareness
National Stress Aawareness Day has played an important role in raising and maintaining awareness in relation to the problem of stress at work, including with respect to presenteeism. It is good to see from the recent report from the CIPD that employers as a whole are now taking note and addressing the issue, with the number of employers taking steps to tackle the problem increasing from 32% in 2020, to 53% in 2022. Hence, campaigns such as National Stress Awareness Day are having a positive impact in terms of delivering results and changes for the better
Back in April 2020, whilst Women and Equalities Minister, the new Prime Minister, Liz Truss stated that she wanted to see a change in office culture, with a move away from presenteeism towards flexible working. She said: "I think that we shouldn't miss the opportunity that we've seen now, of people being able to work more flexibly, and actually implement that in the workplace. I'm interested in the idea of how we can change the culture of offices to move away from presenteeism to move towards more flexible working, and to integrate families more in the lives we'll lead."
