Workers are feeling more and more stressed these days. That isn’t really surprising. But what is phenomenal is the devastation stress leaves in its path for both employees and employers. 78% of employers believe stress is a problem within their staff, states Jan Bruce, CEO and co-founder of Boston-based meQuilibrium, a digital coaching platform. In fact, employers are noticing the symptoms; lower participation, not showing up for work, lower productivity, and wellness programs with low enrollment and success rates. It’s obvious why employers are realizing they need to make changes.
One of the newer trends emerging is resilience building and mindfulness training programs. The purpose of these programs is to help people identify the root of their stress and train them to change the way they think about these triggers. This trend might be the next big thing, as these programs attempt to offer a long-term solutions for stress rather than quick fixes, says meQuilibrium, one of the providers of such providers.
“We’ve got a sea change in the prevalence of stress in the workplace, and EAP and behavioral programs only scratch the surface of in terms of utilization,” Bruce says. “So, more and more employers are turning to a resilience solution as a foundation for their health, wellness and human capital management programs.”
The National Business Group on Health is finding similar figures, saying it’s own survey data finds that improving resiliency and lowering stress one of the top five behaviors employers say they are focused on in 2016.
This viewpoint is shared by meQuilibrium, which backs up the success of its resilience programs with newly released data. The data examines answers from 2,000 employees who took part in the company’s proprietary resilience assessment.
The findings, meQuilibrium says, underscore that employers who work to improve resilience within their employee base will develop a “more engaged, healthy and productive workforce.”
More specifically, key findings of the data include:
- Stress: Highly resilient workers have 46% less perceived stress than low resilience workers.
- Absenteeism: Compared to highly resilient workers, twice as many employed individuals with low resilience have reported one to three absences in the past month.
- Intent to quit: Individuals with low resilience are twice as likely as those with high resilience to quit in the next six months.
- Job satisfaction: Four times as many highly resilient workers are highly satisfied with their jobs, compared to those with resilience scores in the bottom quartile.
- Physical health: Employees with low resilience are more than twice as likely to be overweight and twice as likely to report a hospital stay in the past year.
Highest regards,
Stacia
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