Share Facebook

Twitter

Whatsapp

Mail

Whatsapp Factors such as a lack of job control or long working hours can be harmful to health.

A new study has identified the workplace as a major cause of psychological and physical ill-health. From long hours to economic insecurity, our jobs could literally be killing us. So what practices lead to a healthy workplace?

If you've ever felt that stress at work was killing you, an American study has some bad news: you may actually be right.

Jeffrey Pfeffer, from the Stanford University School of Business, says this isn't exactly news: 'There have been tremendous amounts of epidemiological research on individual workplace stressors and their effects on health outcomes over the years.'

That background literature shows some clear links: people facing economic insecurity are likely to drink, smoke (or smoke more) and exercise less.

The exposures we talk about are as harmful to health as secondhand smoke.

Pfeffer and his colleagues began to consider the workplace as the crucible for stress in everyday life, and considered the implications for business, health and policymakers.

'People spend a lot of their time at work, and work is where our lot of stress happens,' says Pfeffer.

'We believe that if you're really serious about fixing population health, you need to look at the workplace.'

Pfeffer and his colleagues estimate the number of excess deaths attributable to poor company management in the US to be as high as 120,000 per year. In the US, some 5 to 8 per cent of annual healthcare expenditure—$145 billion, in CDC figures—might be attributable to how companies manage their workforce.

This study, a combined effort of the Stanford and Harvard business schools, looked at the psychological and physical impacts of workplace stressors. In Pfeffer's words: 'The exposures we talk about are as harmful to health as second-hand smoke.'

Some of the stressors identified would seem to have obvious negative impacts on an individual's health—the disruption of normal routines caused by shift work, say, or long hours, or a lack of health insurance.

Other stressors Pfeffer's team considered were more abstract, such as work/family conflict. 'It's the stress that comes from when you have a sick child, for instance—or a sick elderly parent,' Pfeffer explains. 'You may be at work, and you're stressed, but you're also trying to do your work at the same time. So it's an overload.'

Pfeffer also cites the importance of social support. 'If you have friends at work, or a strong workplace culture, that mitigates the effect of stress. Low social support would be the absence of those things—you have to cope with everything that comes at you on your own.'

Nepotistic corporate workspaces should also beware—another stressor Pfeffer cites is low organisational justice. 'Is there a kind of fairness in how decisions are made? Is there a lot of favouritism? Are people are hired and fired without understanding why?'

You might, at this point, be wondering: what role did wages play in preventing workplace stressors? Pfeffer notes that even high-paying jobs can feature the aforementioned issues, but points to a class disparity at play.

'People with low levels of education are going to have less job security,' he says. 'They're going to have less job control. They're going to have much more risk of being unemployed.

'Our estimate is somewhere between 10 per cent and 40 per cent of the inequality in health is because of the difference in the workplace conditions that less-educated people face.'

It's not all bad news. Pfeffer points to workplace management strategies that could reduce these stressors. His advice? Hold off on firing people.

'Layoffs are not only harmful to human health, but the economic insecurity that comes from layoffs turns out not to be very helpful to firm profitability either.'

There are financial incentives for employers—Pfeffer cites a 2005 study showing that General Motors has spent more on healthcare costs than it has on steel.

He also points to Germany, where companies have provided incentives for management to keep employees on the payroll, rather than 'throwing the burden onto the state'.

One radical idea for reducing workplace stress is providing autonomy to workers, an approach Pfeffer believes is already working well in tech industries.

He also has advice for workers themselves, even non-Silicon Valley wunderkinds: 'Worry about work hours. If you've worked a full day, by six o'clock in the evening, you should be exhausted anyway, so go home.

'The idea that you're going to be productive working a gazillion hours is fallacious. The longer [you] work, the more prone [you] are to making errors.'

How toxic is your workplace? Listen to the full episode of The Health Report.

Specialist and mainstream audiences alike rely on the Health Report to bring clarity to health and medical issues from social, scientific and political points of view.

