The Hindu Business Line : 50% of employees hit by slowdown-induced stress

The worst fears of economists and social scientists have come true. The slowdown has steeply pushed up stress levels in over 50 per cent of the employees in the corporate sector. This has a telling impact on addiction levels, with more and more employees turning smokers and alcoholics.

A national-level Corporate Wellness survey, conducted by the Apollo Hospitals group in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), has revealed that the slowdown-induced stress levels have hit 50.52 per cent of the employees.

The sample survey is not a small one. As many as 2.29 lakh employees across 581 corporates, spanning both manufacturing and services sectors, in about 32 cities and towns were covered in the survey for 2008-09.

Incidentally, the hospital major had done a similar study a decade ago, covering 100 corporates and 15,000 executives in the six metros.

“The good news is that there is a marked increase in physical fitness. But the bad news is that stress levels have gone up to alarming levels,” Prof Adrian Kennedy of Lifetime Wellness Rx International Ltd, an Apollo Hospitals initiative, told Business Line.

While ‘overall stress’ level had gone up to 50.52 per cent from 39 per cent in 1998-99, work stress shot up to 20.19 per cent (3.40 per cent), home stress to 19.33 per cent (1.62 per cent) and daily pressures from 8.84 per cent to 16.71 per cent.

“The stress levels have gone up as a result of the global slowdown and business competitiveness. The methods of relaxation too are changing more in favour of avenues like pubs,” he said.

Physical fitness

The survey found that 48.46 per cent of all the employees were ‘physically unfit’ (which reflected their inability to carry out certain physical activities they were expected to do in their age group).

Though alarming still, the figure marked an improvement over the 54.80 per cent registered in the earlier study. Those in the ‘overweight’ category came down to 32.52 per cent from 70.98 per cent.

In 2008-09, about 41 per cent of employees admitted that they did not do any physical exercise.

Corporate role

“The response from the corporate world is lukewarm. About 70 per cent of organisations do not provide for wellness facilities.

Only 30 per cent offer medical checks to their staff,” Prof Kennedy said.