Work Watch: Is the Secret to Employee Happiness Not Working?

Read the complete original article here: https://www.ft.com/content/37ea5f40-b376-462a-9fc6-e1f98eaae82e Original Article Authored by Emma Jacobs.

Excerpt from the final portion of the article: Jennifer Moss, author of The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It, says such days — whether fixed or discretionary — are not a quick fix. And if poorly designed, they can amount to wellness washing — public relations spin that fails to address the problem. To get the most from wellbeing days, employers should openly support and model their use, for example by having leaders share how they spent their time on internal channels. Staff should take days before they have “hit the wall” and can’t mentally and physically show up. “We need people to take mental health days proactively — not reactively,” Moss adds. “It’s difficult if inevitably you feel stigmatised for taking one.”

Research in the Journal of Advanced Nursing found that people taking “mental health days” were more likely to report problems at work, as well as mental health issues. The authors concluded that wellbeing days were only dealing with the symptoms of overwork, and that other, earlier interventions might have been more effective in preventing problems in the first place. Moss says: “If we aren’t tackling the root causes of burnout and the chronic stressors at work — mental health days become a band-aid solution. If you have a culture of overwork, you’re going to either work while on a mental health day or never take one.”