Making our nation better, one workplace at a time

Remember seven months ago, when people were still traveling? I was speaking at the HRComply national human resources institute in Nashville, Tennessee, giving a presentation on job wellness and its evil twin, burnout. At the time, with low unemployment and surging business, the concern was how to keep a workforce happy, stable, and productive without being brought down by high-stress work or an unsupportive work environment.

Circumstances have changed since then. The threat to today’s workforce likely isn’t burnout. It hasn’t been named yet, but it is surely there and will be named soon. The diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) expressly exclude the loss of a job, but our workforce as a whole will experience something like PTSD for years to come.

The distress arises from people worried about their jobs—if they will have them and how long they will last. The Federal Reserve and the Congressional Budget Office both project the unemployment rate will settle at 9.3% at the start of 2021 and remain at 6.5% through 2022. Earlier this year, the unemployment rate was 3.5%. Many of your employees will watch their colleagues and friends lose their jobs. That in and of itself is a big stressor.

While finances are the biggest employee worry, health concerns come in a close second, according to an April 2020 survey by MetLife. Not surprisingly, between the two overlapping stressors, almost 70% of the workforce is reporting higher incidences of stress.