Posted on September 23rd, 2008 by Craig Maltby, Editor
Stress Test: Employees’ #1 health concern? You guessed it. STRESS (and watch out for Chicago).
My wife just got back from a meeting at her company’s headquarters. She works for a major financial 
services company (thankfully one that is financially sound and not wallowing in the credit crisis…at least not yet). The home office staff presented some summary results from a health and benefits survey distributed to the company’s 23,000 employees. The number one health concern–ranked first by nearly 70% of the survey respondents–was stress.
But it’s not just limited to big companies with thousands of employees. Smaller employers also are seeing employees asking for more help in confronting stress and stress-related conditions.
I’m glad her job isn’t located in Chicago, because Forbes magazine this month ranked The Windy City as America’s most stressful city to live in. The rankings factor in things like population density, cost of living, and air quality, among others. Immune balance could go a long way in that town. However, I’m sure if the Cubs win the pennant, the collective stress-o-meter reading will plummet significantly.
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Wow… I live in Chicago and definitely wouldn’t say this is the most stressful city. However, I was at the Cubs 1st playoff game and THAT was stressful. I do think that companies need to help increase work-life balance to help lower employee stress levels… Let employees work from home or a coffee shop sometime – getting them out of the office to work on a project may decrease stress and even improve out-of-the-box thinking!
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Right on, Alison. Tapping employees’ full potential for creativity, idea generation and innovative solutions would, I think, be a great leap in stress reduction. I know that many surveys on employee satisfaction all exhibit findings that show a big cause of employee stress and job dissatisfaction stems from employees not feeling confident that their day to day work is contributing to the department or corporate mission, or being confused about what the mission or objective is (sorry companies, but “maximizing shareholder value” is not a mission, that’s a given. Who can get out of bed in the morning with that as their motivational mantra?).
Gosh, I didn’t mean for this to turn into an employee development or management retention sermon.
Anyway, thanks Alison, for the comment.