April is National Stress Awareness Month. Studies show that workplace stress is easily the biggest source of stress for U.S. adults. A little bit of stress at work is only natural, and can help sharpen your senses and instincts for improved performance. But researchers have long been aware that too much stress can lead to a multitude of negative effects on your health. Personal relationships, job performance, productivity, and emotional health can all be affected negatively by a surplus of stress. And we potentially worry about so much at work: Losing your job, missing a promotion, upsetting your boss, or missing a deadline. Sixty-five percent of workers say that workplace stress has been an issue, with 10% saying elevated stress levels at work have had major unwanted effects.
Comparably sought to examine some of the biggest issues regarding workplace stress for today’s U.S. employees.
Respondents were asked:
- What’s your biggest stressor at work?
- Do you feel burnt out at work?
- How important is work-life balance, compared with other professional benefits (compensation, advancement, stability) at this stage of your career?
- What’s your biggest fear at work?
- What are your biggest work distractions?
- Does your office have space to take naps and/or a culture that supports napping during work hours?
The results:
Unclear goals cause more stress than anything else in the workplace
- Employees replied that unclear goals were a big source of stress at more than twice as much as any other option they were offered. Tied for the second most common stress-causing element of the workday were a rough commute and bad management. Respondents throughout the study seemed largely unconcerned with the potential of having to work overtime.
- A third of women and nearly half of men agree that undefined work goals cause them more stress at work than anything else. Women were slightly more agitated by long hours and difficult co-workers than men.
- People of color agreed about the profound effect unclear goals can have on their stress levels. Asian/Pacific Islanders chose that option most frequently, with Hispanic/Latinos and African Americans also disproportionately choosing that answer over the other four.
- While the unclear goals option was the top choice across the board, certain departments showed more nuanced results. For Executives, long hours came in second-place. Workers in Admin had little issue with long hours but noted a bad commute, difficult co-workers, and a bad manager all about one-fifth of the time for second place. Customer Support’s second most dreaded choice was a bad manager – which makes sense considering those employees would have to take that bad management and communicate it directly to customers as their job.
More than half of all workers say they currently feel burnt out at work
- More than half of both men and women feel burnt out. But the more notable statistic is that over half of all workers from both sexes who responded say they have been run ragged on the job. Such a large number again begs the question of how much stress people should naturally expect at work.
- Almost two-thirds of Hispanic/Latinos and Asian/Pacific Islanders feel burnt out at work, beating the average for all employees. More than half of all respondentsfrom African Americans, Caucasians and the “Other” designation said they felt burnt out at work.
- Workers with just a high school education under their belts feel the most burnout among education levels at 57%. Most college-educated workers report lower numbers of burnout, hovering around 53% until spiking again for those with a Master’s degree (55%), who presumably often have higher-stress (and higher-paying) jobs.
- Strangely, entry-level workers – who should by all rights be the most enthusiastic at work – report burnout most often among experience levels. This may have to do with feelings of anxiety over a new career. Feeling the least burned out are employees who have worked 3 to 6 years and over 10 years (both 54%.)
- When departments are broken down by gender, in almost every case men report more burnout than women. The only departments where female workers reported feeling more stressed out than their male counterparts were the Product and Sales departments. Both sexes are equally burned out in the Design and Legal departments.
One-third say a healthy work-life balance is the most important work benefit
- More than half of all respondents ranked work-life balance as first- or second-most important in a list of professional benefits that also include compensation, advancement and stability.
- Women chose work-life balance as most important at a slightly higher rate than men. By the same coin, men chose second-place for work-life balance slightly more often than women.
- African-Americans, Hispanic/Latinos, and Asian/Pacific Islanders all chose work-life balance as most important at a higher rate than average for all employees. African-Americans chose that option more frequently than any other group at a substantial 41%. Among ethnicities, only the Caucasian segment chose work-life balance less often than the overall average considering all employees.
- Segmented by age, the 26-30 and 41-45 age bracket ranked work-life balance as most important. The 18-25 and 31-35 groups chose that option second-most often. And for people aged 36-40, work-life balance was tied for first place.
Fear of a stress breakdown at work affects one-quarter of all respondents
- Stagnation strikes fear in the hearts of our employee respondents more than any of the other options (45%), but that’s perhaps a more abstract fear than the runner-up, which was having a stress breakdown (23%). Being overlooked for promotion (19%) was mentioned less frequently but often enough to register as a concern.
- More than a quarter of women fear a stress breakdown at work, while just over one-fifth of men do. Stagnation is still the biggest fear, but half of men (51%) are much more concerned about it than women (35%).Neither group seemed particularly concerned with being on the business end of harassment accusations, with men even less worried (3%) than women (4%).
- All ethnic groups chose becoming stagnant as well, but for the Asian/Pacific Islanders, over half responded that way – more than any other group. The Asian/Pacific Islanders were less concerned (13%) about having a stress breakdown than the African-American (25%), Hispanic/Latino (23%), and Caucasian (27%) buckets.
- Nearly two-thirds of Executives fear becoming stagnant, more than any other department group –which makes sense when you’ve reached the top and further progress becomes increasingly difficult. Workers in Customer Support broke from the pack and chose having a stress breakdown as their worst fear (36%). And for Finance employees, stagnation and a stress breakdown were tied for the top answer at 29% each.
Other employees are the greatest source of distraction for most
- Interruptions by other co-workers and the boss were the biggest distractions for our respondents. Social media/Internet distractions were a clear second with 24%.
- By gender, both men and women chose co-workers and the boss as their biggest distractions from their work. Men were more distracted by social media than women. And family was a bigger distraction for women than for men.
- Surprising almost nobody, the 18-25 group chose social media/internet distractions as their biggest waster of valuable time. They chose the otherwise most popular answer (coworkers/boss) at 30% for second place.
Very few U.S. companies have cultures that support nap breaks for employees
- Just over one-quarter of men and one-fifth of women say they are encouraged or allowed to take naps during their workday. Naps may be a very effective stress-breaker for the workplace, but U.S. work culture hasn’t quite accepted the notion of nap time as quickly as some other countries’ workforces have.
- When the data is broken down by department, men are far more likely to be offered a work schedule including time for naps.Only in the Communications, Finance, and Sales departments are women more likely to be offered naps.
Methodology
- Questions were in Yes/No and multiple-choice format. A total of six survey questions were included with 20,944 responses. Each question was initiated between April 2018 and April 2019. Results are as of April 15, 2019.
- People of all ages, educational backgrounds, ethnicities and experience levels were included.
- Employees hail from small, mid-size, and large companies (VC-funded, privately-held, and public) to household brands like Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber, etc.
