Legal & General has launched a campaign aimed at highlighting how stress in the workplace is affecting financial services and what employers can do to help.
Legal & General has launched a campaign aimed at highlighting how stress in the workplace is affecting financial services and what employers can do to help.
The campaign follows the release of Legal & General's internal group income protection claims statistics, which show that in the financial sector 42% of all claims are for mental health illnesses.
Work related stress was the most common health problem for calling the Government's pilot Occupational Health Advice Line yet, only 17% of employers from all sectors have any form of stress management advice and support in place.
Over the next four months Legal & General will be highlighting the mounting problem of long-term sickness absences in the financial services sector by revealing new data and positioning posters in London's main commuter train stations.
The Health & Safety Executive's Labour Force Survey estimates that 10.8 million working days were lost in 2010/11 due to mental health issues such as stress, depression and anxiety.
Diane Buckley, managing director of group protection at Legal & General, said: “Over the past year the financial services sector has been under increasing pressure. Mounting regulation, and trying to deliver 'more for less' are all taking their toll. Employees are trying to juggle a busy home life with their working life, and stretching their budgets to go further. All of this adds up to a lot of stress.
“What we are doing is raising awareness of the increase in stress-related absences and saying to employers that they have a role to play in ensuring the mental wellbeing of their staff in the workplace.â€
Responding to the launch of the campaign, Jenny Edwards, chair of The International Stress Management Association said: “Managing stress in the workplace is not just a nice to have policy, but a necessary requirement to reducing the current rise in mental health problems, particularly within the financial services sector. The effects of stress on the individual will also affect moral and teamwork within an organisation frequently resulting in presenteeism, which is 1.5 times more costly than absenteeism.â€
