Worker resilience is declining, with 21% feeling less prepared to deal with change than last year. An ILO survey of more than 5,000 workers in Europe, the UK, the US and Australia reveals increased hours and workloads, leading to a decline in enthusiasm and productivity. The report suggests improvements in mental health, investments in technology and bureaucratic simplification to create safer and more resilient working environments.
What it’s about:
Compared to the end of the pandemic but even just last year, 21% of workers feel less resilient and less inclined to face new changes. While there has been much talk about the resilience of certain sectors, a new ILO survey analyzes this characteristic through the eyes of workers. The research involved over 5,000 people in the EU and the UK, but also in the USA and Australia, who work in essential sectors of daily safety, asking them to express their personal feelings and make observations and comments in the workplace.
Research has shown that workers are being asked to work longer hours and with greater workloads, which results in a decline in enthusiasm for work.
Key findings identified in the report include:
Wobbly Resilience: workers’ ability to respond to changes in the workplace has declined into a kind of emotional fatigue, with 21% feeling less resilient than last year.
Constant increase in requests: as workers’ resilience falters, demands on staff increase; workers reported longer working hours (55%), increasing workloads (63%) and a decline in enthusiasm for work (64%).
Performance issues: These challenges are leading to a decrease in enthusiasm for working (51%), which is having a knock-on effect on business productivity, as 43% admit to cutting costs at work and 49% are considering leaving to work in other sectors.
The report correctly tries to offer a series of plausible solutions to best address these new challenges, which are very unusual compared to the past, and goes so far as to draw up a series of recommendations:
- OSH and ESG improvements: Robust OSH programs and policies that include good mental health supports become necessary, especially in sectors such as construction, industry and healthcare and in general in jobs that work with the public.
- Investing in talent: Avoid stigma towards new generations. Modern organizations must promote and reward professional development through upskilling and reskilling initiatives. It has become a priority to empower workers with tangible flexible work options and manageable workloads, in order to retain talent and improve job satisfaction and productivity.
- Investing in technology: Improve access to data, use artificial intelligence to simplify the most repetitive tasks. Investing in advanced data analytics platforms and AI-powered tools will alleviate workloads, increase efficiency and help manage tasks effectively. Today’s data says that in companies where AI has been invested, the average saving is around 2 hours of work for each employee.
- Improve data integrity: Fragmented procedures and above all incomplete data compromise efficiency and regulatory compliance in all those sectors in which the technological contribution is decisive (pharmaceutical, chemical, energy, etc.). Leveraging digital platforms and integrated data management approaches can and should overcome this problem, because they are designed for purpose.
- Simplify bureaucracy: Simplifying all documents means simplifying regulatory compliance where possible. There are many sectors in which there is a great need for better supports even just to orient oneself in the increasingly complex and detailed regulations. Simplifying compliance processes can effectively mitigate risk and allow organizations to focus on core activities.
Towards a new safety culture?
Workers need to know that their organization values their safety above anything else. By now, most HR leaders are used to hearing candidates ask about their companies’ ESG performance or even their D&I policies. New graduates are unlikely to ask questions about the security issues of the organization for which they are interviewing and this fact should be thought through.
While interest in workplace safety intensified with the pandemic, it has since begun to extend to a variety of forms of safety, both physical and psychological, both job candidates and current workers don’t seem very focused on safety .
All research provides comparable and unique data: in addition to physical safety, workers and potential hires are concerned about their psychological safety.
Surveys have found that 68% of workers say their employer is not making an active effort to support their mental health in the workplace. Warning: we are talking about the perceptions of the workers, not the real working situation. In fact, 65% note that their organization does not provide mental health resources and 71% say their workplace culture does not allow for open dialogue about mental health, but appears to be left over from the last century.
Demonstrating that you care about workers can become crucial and is something that larger organizations are trying to implement together with multinationals. It is well known that the younger workforce, (Gen Z and Millennials), seeks employment in organizations that demonstrate that they care about workers through their investments in health and wellness programs and also ESG. Multinationals are certain that these investments have a concrete return through greater job satisfaction and consequently productivity. Calmer workers, who are not afraid of having an accident at work or developing occupational diseases, can mean they can focus on improvements and making their work better. In the last two/three years, retaining workers once they are on board is also equally challenging. Offering a variety of safety courses, which can be taken in any form, at any time and customized for the job you will be doing, creates a consistent safety culture.
The main innovation remains the introduction of a stop work policy introduced de facto by the Mini-Reform of the Draghi Decree of 2021, whereby supervisors have the possibility to stop work if they believe it is unsafe. Safety culture needs to improve with both current and future workers.
Conclusion
By implementing these recommendations, companies can create resilient, adaptable and future-proof organizations capable of thriving in an environment of constant change. Demonstrating that you care about workers is essential to attract and retain talent, improve productivity and ensure a safe and healthy working environment.
