Most people spend more time at work than they do with their family or friends. As a result, work stress can carry over into life at home and vice versa. Gallup’s 2024 State of the Global Workplace study found rising levels of stress are causing incivility at work with 41% of employees reporting “a lot of stress.”
When bad management practices are present in the workplace, employees are close to 60% more likely to be stressed and disengaged. In fact, working under bad management practices can create more stress than having no job at all. Stress comes in many forms but not having the equipment and materials you need to do your job effectively ranks at the top of the list and it often requires action from management to resolve the issue(s).
Ripple Effects
While this might be dismissed as a minor issue, the many impacts of stress cannot be ignored. From a financial perspective, low employee engagement costs the global economy U.S. $8.9 trillion or 9% of the global GPD. In 2023, Gallup’s study found global employee engagement stagnate and overall employee wellbeing declined.
It’s also important to note ongoing concerns about the state of employees’ mental wellbeing, which many are seeing through a rise in feelings of stress, anxiety, sadness, anger and/or worry. It’s a lot to deal with and it’s not just global employees impacted, but global managers, too.
Gallup found managers are often more likely to have more negative experiences than non-managers. This can be especially true of middle managers who are often caught in between trying to serve the needs of their employees and the desires of upper management.
Finding Focus
Yet a whopping 70% of the variance in team engagement can be attributed to the manager, according to Gallup. The global study found that when managers are engaged at work, their employee counterparts are also more likely to be engaged. Countries in the upper half of manager engagement are twice as likely to have engaged non-managers.
The study found engagement was linked to the interpersonal relationships an employee has with their manager. Gallup goes as far to say that the manager-employee relationship is the focus of employee engagement and is a crucial factor in if an individual can thrive in their life. Thriving in life spills over into engagement at work and vice versa. Additionally, when an employee feels good about their job and sees it as meaningful and interesting, this also boosts life in general.