How does working conditions affect health

Great Place to Work-Certified companies and Best Workplaces prove that it is possible to create successful businesses where employees feel strong, healthy, and connected. While physical health has been in the spotlight for years, mental health is finally getting the attention that it deserves. The truth is that physical and mental health go hand-in-hand and and both must be present for true wellness to be achieved.

But this isn't news to many of you. We invited Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford University, an expert in workplace health to speak at our Great Place to Work For All Summit to share his point of view on workplace wellness. Jeffrey Pfeffer's research focuses on the effects of work environments on human health and well-being. During his keynote he shared some fascinating findings about wellness. Instead, improving the overall work environment by creating a great place to work for all is a far more effective way to keep employees healthy.

What can employers do to keep workers healthy? There has been a lot of research conducted on employees that have little control over their work. The negative affects of work are particularly acute for employees in high-pressure jobs with little control over their workdays. British epidemiologist Michael Marmot and his team examined employees within the British Civil Service.

Controlling for other factors, it turned out that differences in job control, which were correlated with job rank, most accounted for this phenomenon. Higher-ranked British employees, like higher-ranked employees in most organizations, enjoyed more control over their jobs and had more discretion over what they did, how they did it, and when—even though they often faced greater job demands.

So what is Pfeffer's recommendation? Organizations can guard against these dangers by creating roles with more fluidity and autonomy, and by erecting barriers to micromanagement. In Morten Hansen's book, Great at Work , based on a study of about 5, people, he finds that performance is not positively related to work hours. In fact, according to the book, the greater the work hours, the lower the productivity per hour worked.

According to Pfeffer, long work hours "are associated with adverse health, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, disability. Those stresses encourage people to go to extraordinary, sometimes illogical lengths to exercise some control over their work lives. A young nurse recently told me she actually took up smoking years ago when she noticed that smokers got cigarette breaks while nonsmokers had to keep working.

It seems that managers in her hospital appreciated the effects of physical addiction, but like many others, had forgotten the simple human need for a little downtime.

In their book Healthy Work, published in , Robert Karasek and Tores Theorell found 10 percent of people in high-demand, high-control jobs exhibited symptoms of depression. That figure ballooned to 57 percent for workers in high-demand, low-control jobs. Likewise for cardiovascular symptoms, such as chest pain and shortness of breath: Three percent of those in high-demand, high-control jobs complained of such symptoms, compared to 20 percent in high-demand, low-control positions.

Add a bad manager to the high-demand, low-control mix, and the situation becomes even more toxic. Employees who received little social support while working high-strain jobs were considerably more likely to suffer from depression than were those who had support on the job, according to Karasek and Theorell's study. Not surprisingly, the result of all this is elevated stress: Ninety-nine percent of workers in high-demand, low-control jobs say they feel it, according to one study.

What's disconcerting is how they deal with it. The implication: If you can't control what you do at work, you're going to control whether you go at all.

Indeed, the number of people missing work because of stress more than tripled between and , climbing from 6 to 19 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of workers taking unscheduled time off for personal needs jumped from 13 to 20 percent. To a growing number of employers, none of this is news.

They have responded with stress interventions. They sponsor on-site aerobics and yoga classes. They subsidize memberships to local fitness clubs. They have employee assistance programs and may even spring for on-site massages. Such individually targeted interventions fall far short of the mark, however, if the problem is systemic. If the workplace causes the stress, sleepless nights, jangled nerves, heart attacks and depression, then all the fitness programs add up to little more than a heap of dumbbells.

For systemic problems, nothing short of a corporate cultural revolution will suffice. To understand the problem, compare the pace of life today with that of just a decade ago. Today's workers do more in less time than ever before, helped by e-mail, faxes, the Internet, cell phones, beepers and voice mail. This arsenal of efficiency also makes escaping the workplace far more difficult.

An influx of women to the workforce has caused another dramatic change. In , the average family worked In response to employee complaints and high turnover, most companies have introduced alternative work schedules. One survey found 83 percent offer part-time work options, 39 percent have flextime, 30 percent allow telecommuting and 39 percent say they have job sharing.

In other words, they've done their part. Or have they? One survey of work trends shows only a handful of workers actually use those options.

Many fear they will be perceived as slackers or will not be able to advance with less workplace visibility or fewer hours worked. Seeing workers shun alternative work schedules, employers might shrug and say, "Hey, we tried.

Like a squeezed water balloon, employee dissatisfaction and its associated problems will merely slip to another part of the balance sheet. If employees can't get any relief on the job, they'll simply avoid the job. If alternative work arrangements are seen as unacceptable ways to get a little personal time, they'll opt for sick time and disability or quit.

Illness becomes an unassailable means of escape and quitting the best way to manage stress. Under the current system of incentives and rewards, their behavior is perfectly rational. For example: Shift work — a person working the night shift is at greater risk of a range of disorders, accidents and other effects.

These may include obesity, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal problems, transport accidents, work-related accidents, family problems and divorce. Certain occupations — jobs in forestry, fishing, mining, transport and storage, agriculture and construction are the most dangerous in Australia. Examples of hazardous work practices include not wearing personal safety equipment or failing to use proper manual handling techniques.

Workplace injuries: selected statistics General information on workplace injuries from the Australian Bureau of Statistics includes: About six Australians in every experience a work-related injury every year. About half of all work-related injuries require time off work. People who work in jobs that require physical labour are at higher risk of injury.

The most common health issues for office workers include musculoskeletal injuries such as repetitive strain injury RSI. The rate of injury is highest in younger workers. Contributing factors may include job inexperience, lack of adequate training, and a tendency to work in jobs that present an increased risk of injury, such as retail.

The highest injury rate by age group is among men aged 20—24 years, with about 10 injured per employed men. By comparison, the injury rate among women of the same age is half that. The industries with the highest risk of injury for female workers include accommodation, cafes and restaurants.

The industries with the highest risk of injury for male workers include agriculture, forestry and fishing. Workplace injuries Workplace injuries may occur as a result of: Overuse or poor handling techniques Moving objects Noise or air pollution Vehicle accidents Tool or machine failure or misuse Falls Electrocution Drowning Accidents with dangerous goods or hazardous substances — for example, a liquid splash Suffocation or asphyxia Infection Violence.

Accidental deaths in the workplace In —08, work-related injury caused the death of Australians, with men accounting for of those fatalities.

About 80 per cent of those fatalities occurred in four industries: Construction Transport and storage Agriculture, forestry and fishing Manufacturing. Generally speaking, the most common causes of work-related fatal injury include: Vehicle accidents account for about four workplace deaths in every 10 Falling objects Moving objects Falls Becoming trapped in moving machinery. Retirement Responses to retirement depend on the reason for leaving the workforce.

For example, a person who planned for their retirement is more likely to feel positive about it, while a person forced into early retirement due to redundancy or illness may find it harder to cope.

Retrenchment or unemployment Job loss, retrenchment and unexpected unemployment can cause hardship and distress that may lead to health problems. It is normal to experience a range of reactions, which may include shock, anger, guilt and a sense of powerlessness. Over time, the build-up of financial pressures, feelings of failure or being undervalued, and the emotional exhaustion of prolonged job hunting can lead to stress , anxiety , depression and fatigue.

IDSA Tel.