Your clients’ employees are stressed, and it’s hurting their bottom line. That might sound like a bold statement, but it’s true. According to a Gallup survey, 54% of employees report feeling a significant amount of stress on a regular basis–that’s an all-time high. So, what gives?
Everything from low wages that aren’t enough to keep up with rising inflation to conflicting demands and excessive workloads is to blame for the ballooning employee stress problem. There is no shortage of causes, and the effects of more stress in the workplace are taking its toll.
And when 73% of global employers outsource some aspect of their payroll, their employees’ stress becomes your stress.
Stressed employees are categorically unhappy. The stressed, overburdened, and disenfranchised are leaving jobs at unprecedented rates, causing retention and recruitment problems for employers. When they do come to work, they’re focused on their stress instead of their jobs which means lower productivity, more errors, and greater conflict in the workplace. All signs of trouble for your clients.
Let’s take a closer look at the causes and explore how to reduce employee stress in the workplace – and improve your bottom line.
What Causes Employee Stress
Employees have no shortage of reasons to feel stressed. Typical factors include:
- Low Wages
- Increased Workloads
- Lack of Opportunity, Challenge, or Growth
- Lack of Social Support
- Lack of Control
- Conflicting Demands or Expectations
There are a number of variables that can intensify this stress, like relationship problems at home, personal debt, or a child that is struggling and acting out. The problem is that a growing number of employees are experiencing higher levels of stress and it’s showing up in different areas as problems for your employers.
Even for employees who have a payroll company responsible for their pay and benefits, financial stress is still one of the biggest culprits of disengaged workers. Two-thirds of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, leaving them vulnerable as inflation continues to rise and fears of a recession grow. These employees can’t afford to miss even one paycheck.
Why Employee Stress is a Problem for Your Clients
Employers are struggling more than ever before to attract and retain top talent. In fact, it’s a $300 billion per year problem for businesses around the world. Stress makes employees irritable, fidgety, unfocused, and exhausted. And they deal with these negative feelings in different ways that hurt you and your clients’ bottom line.
Absenteeism
An estimated one million workers miss work each day due to stress-related causes. Employees who feel stressed tend to call off more frequently. In turn, that increases the work demand on the employees that do show up, perpetuating the cycle of workplace stress and driving absenteeism rates up.
Some employees willingly call off to attend to mental health needs, but that’s not the only way that employee stress increases absenteeism.
The Great Resignation
McKinsey & Company dove into the data to prove whether The Great Resignation was a real threat to employers. What they found was a clear, firm – YES. But more concerning than the fact that attrition rates are climbing is that employers don’t have a clear understanding of why.
“By not understanding what their employees are running from, and what they might gravitate to, company leaders are putting their very business at risk.”
Employees who are feeling more stressed than ever before are headed for the door at unprecedented rates, and many employees don’t have the first clue how to keep them from leaving. Employee attraction and retention is a challenge for any company, and this turnover will affect your bottom line.
Lost Productivity
Stress is a big culprit of lost productivity. The anxious and sometimes careless behaviors caused by stress lead to poor decision-making, interpersonal roadblocks, and a steep drop in motivation when employees do come to work.
Plus, companies with stressed employees see more disruptions all the way around, from absenteeism to an increase in workplace accidents, all adding up to big losses in productivity as a result of employee stress in the workplace. When your clients’ bottom line is affected, they might start cutting costs, which could affect your bottom line.
The Psychology Behind Reducing Employee Stress in the Workplace
One psychologist, Frederick Herzberg, identified the Two Factor Theory on motivation which argues that job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are more than simply opposing constructs. Herzberg theorized that there are two separate sets of factors that determine workplace happiness–which is the key component to unlocking the secret of how to reduce employee stress in the workplace.
According to Herzberg, employers can decrease job dissatisfaction by improving working conditions or offering higher wages, but those efforts don’t necessarily translate to job satisfaction, just a lesser extent of dissatisfaction. This means that employers also need to invest in motivators like flexible pay, recognition, and growth opportunities.
How Flexible Pay Takes the Stress Out of Payroll – for Employers and Employees
Flexible pay is an appropriate motivator that increases job satisfaction. According to Herzberg’s theory, employers should use certain motivators, like flexible pay, to effectively reduce employee stress in the workplace.
But why does flexible pay like Early Wage Access effectively reduce employee stress, leading to happier clients who will rely upon your payroll company?
Flexible pay lets employees choose when and how they get paid – whether through direct deposit, a reloadable paycard, or by some other means. This helps take some of that financial stress off their mind. With retention and alleviating workplace stress at the top of many employers’ priority lists, payroll companies need to offer something to address it.
Providing your clients with a more complete payroll offering that you can offer employers can be a strong motivator for attracting new clients who are struggling with stressed workers. Plus, it allows you to offer more competitive services that other payroll companies might not have yet, giving you a competitive edge.
Attract More Clients with Flexible Pay & Reloadable Pay Cards
Now is the time for payroll companies to take notice of the rising stress levels in their client’s workplace and take proactive steps to address it. An option of flexible pay is more than some payroll companies offer, which can improve your bottom line once word gets out to other businesses with unhappy workers.
Flexible pay can be a means to effectively reduce the stress that is keeping your customer’s workforce from achieving their productivity goals. It’s about more than changing how you offer to help pay your employer’s employees; it’s about meeting the financial needs of them as well.
Want to try a flexible payroll solution for your clients, but aren’t sure where to look? Juice Financial makes incorporating a FinTech solution into your payroll processes feel almost too easy. If you’re looking for a way to keep your employer’s employees satisfied with flexible pay, learn more about our solutions today – including our Pay Today same-day pay option.
