Originally published in The Economic Times

Five in 10 employees feel that work stress has taken a toll on their personal relationships, finds a new survey.

Mental health at the workplace has become one of the crucial factors to be considered during the pandemic, as the shift to remote work has been stressful for many professionals and has affected their work life balance. According to the survey by SCIKEY Market Network, it was revealed that only 18% respondents feel that they can talk to someone at work during the time of stress, while 28% feel that they can never talk to someone about their mental health.

Out of all the respondents, 53% feel that they can sometimes rely on a supervisor or colleague for mental support, while 20% said that it's never an option for them. The survey also revealed that 78% employees are easily distracted during their working hours, while 23% feel neglected at work

When asked about the top factors contributing to high stress, half the respondents said that the future was their major concern, 40.9% of respondents cited work overload, other crucial contributing factors being expectation beyond what one can deliver (34%), unrealistic deadlines (26%), poor problem solving and development (21.6%), poor task environment and lack of definition of objective (22 7%) and low participation in decision making (21.6%).

The survey findings also suggested the above factors resulted in stress-related symptoms affecting the respondent's behaviour. While 51.7% of these respondents reported mood changes, 30% reported yelling at loved ones. Almost 56% reported headaches, while 39.1% reported they would get angry often.

"In this period of crisis and challenges, it is of the utmost importance to discuss and prioritise mental well-being of employees at the workplace. Communication is one thing that will help people improve their mental health, be it with friends, family or colleagues, irrespective of it being virtual or in-person. it is the responsibility of every organisation to implement supportive programmes for all the people contributing to the growth of the organisation," Karunjit Dhir, co-founder, SCIKEY Market Network, told ET.

The report highlights organisational support to employees with respect to their mental well-being. Only 16.3% responded that their workplace carries a dedicated stress management group to support employees, while 31.4% said that they have workshops, employee assistance programmes (24.4%) and training and development (26.7%). On a positive note, overall 81% respondents feel that they have a supportive workplace and 83% feel and understand that it's crucial to openly talk about mental health.

The responses were collected from 2,500 respondents from different industries spanning IT, marketing, finance, fashion and education, retail, etc.

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