Almost half of UK workers (47 per cent) spend the majority of their time feeling overwhelmed by their workloads, while 85 per cent say that work is causing them stress, according to research from employee experience company Qualtrics.

The Qualtrics Employee Pulse – a quarterly survey of more than 4,000 employees – highlights the impact of burgeoning workloads on today’s workforce and reveals better support from the business is needed to ensure the mental wellbeing of staff.

Only a third of managers helping

More than half (52 per cent) of UK workers believe their employer does not promote a healthy work-life balance and only a third say that their managers help them to manage their workload.

The situation is worst in the North West of England, with only 49 per cent of workers saying they are happy with their current work-life balance, followed by 53 per cent in London and the South East. In contrast, the percentage of satisfied workers peaks at 60 per cent in the North East, closely followed by 58 per cent in Scotland.

Stress trickles down to work quality

Commenting on the findings, Sarah Marrs, Employee Experience Specialist at Qualtrics, said, “Work-life balance is a hugely important part of modern business and a key driver in keeping staff motivated and satisfied. The fact that so many workers are struggling to stay on top of their workloads is a real cause for concern.

“A business’ employees are its key assets – so the mental health and wellbeing of staff should be a top priority for organisations looking to engage their teams and boost productivity. If employees are stressed, tired or overworked, those feelings will rapidly trickle down into the quality of their work and is more likely to result in their choosing to leave the organisation. Finally, it’s important to remember that employees are often the face of a business to customers – and no business wants their customer interaction to be one of stress and overwork.”

What can drive success?

Sarah added that the key driver results show us where organisations can focus to have a real impact on engagement.

“Work-life balance is not traditionally something included on most engagement surveys but, based on our study, more companies should be looking to add it on their surveys. On top of that, being able to try out things that interest you in your role was a stronger driver of engagement than seeing career progression in an organisation. If you’re a manager, make sure you take time to understand what work interests your employees, and give them opportunities to complete tasks that align with those in their role. Unfortunatel, we have some way to go in the UK – it was the 3rd lowest scoring item in the study.”

Sarah added;

“Whatever age group, there are 2 universal conditions that a company creates when people look forward to going to work. When people are happy with their work-life balance and feel they’re acknowledged when they do good work, they look forward to work. If a manager focussed on ensuring their team has a balance between work and life which suits them, and made sure to recognise good work from their team-mates, our results would indicate this would give them a team full of people that want to be there.

If you manage a younger team, helping to build strong bonds and levels of trust on the team as well as ensuring people see the opportunity for career progression is also important.”