LIFESTYLE

Canadians working remotely struggle to disconnect from their jobs, report says

Published Thursday, April 21, 2022 5:24AM EDT

In April, Ontario became the first province to pass a new transparency law requiring companies to establish policies to tell their employees if and how they are being electronically monitored while at work, whether in a physical office, in the field or at home. (Pexels)

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A new report has found that 28 per cent of Canadians are experiencing challenges disconnecting from their jobs after regular work hours, a trend experts at LifeWorks say is continuing to impact employees' mental health.

According to the LifeWorks' monthly Mental Health Index released Thursday, Canadians who are unable to disconnect from their jobs after the work day displayed a mental health score nearly nine points below the national average.

The index found respondents younger than 40 were 70 per cent more likely to be unable to disconnect after regular work hours than those older than 50.

LifeWorks President and CEO Stephen Liptrap said the findings come as many Canadian organizations continue to operate within remote or hybrid models due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Employers are starting to realize that the mental health impact of pandemic disruption will be with us for quite some time. As the worksite is now overlapped with home, the benefits of flexibility can easily be countered by lack of separation from work," Liptrap said in a press release.

According to the report, 51 per cent of Canadians said they were unable to disconnect from their work because they had too much work to complete during the work day, 25 per cent said their manager contacts them after work hours, while 23 per cent said their co-workers contact them for work-related issues after hours.

In addition, LifeWorks found many Canadian workers are currently experiencing burnout, leading to a lack of concentration and motivation on the job.

The Mental Health Index reports more than two in five Canadians said they end their workday feeling mentally and/or physically exhausted. LifeWorks says this group was found to have a mental health score 13 points below the national average.

LifeWorks uses a response scoring system that turns individual responses to each survey question into a point value. Higher point values are associated with better mental health, according to the report.

The scores of those surveyed are added and then divided by a total number of possible points to obtain a score out of 100. To demonstrate change, the current month’s scores are then compared to the benchmark and the prior month.

According to the index, 27 per cent of Canadians surveyed said they are finding it "increasingly difficult" to concentrate on their work due to burnout, while 35 per cent reported a lack of motivation due to feelings of exhaustion.

Paula Allen, global leader and senior vice-president of research and total wellbeing at LifeWorks, says burnout creates an issue for employee health, productivity, engagement and retention.

"Motivation decreases with burnout, not because people no longer care about their work, but because they lack the energy to engage fully," Allen said in the release.

Allen noted increased cynicism and conflict are also becoming more prevalent in workplaces due to burnout, creating a "significant risk" to an organization's culture and overall productivity at the company.

"The solutions need to address the burnout itself with appropriate services and require employers to understand the conditions creating burnout for their employees," she said.

MENTAL HEALTH IMPACTS

LifeWorks' overall Mental Health Index for March 2022 was down -10.5 points, which is nearly unchanged from the prior month and almost an 11-point decrease from the pre-2020 benchmark.

According to the report, mental health scores improved in Alberta, Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador in March 2022, while British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, and the Maritimes saw declines.

The index also monitors sub-scores against pre-pandemic benchmarks, including financial risk, psychological health, isolation, work productivity, anxiety, depression and optimism.

The report found that the lowest sub-scores in March 2022 were depression risk (-12.2) and optimism (-11.7), closely followed by anxiety (-11.4), while financial risk came in as the best sub-score and the only one that measured above the historical benchmark (4.0).

With a 1.3-point increase, the general psychological health sub-score has seen the greatest improvement compared to February 2022, according to the index.

METHODOLOGY

LifeWorks' latest monthly index is based on an online English and French survey with 3,000 responses collected between March 3 and 20, 2022. All respondents reside in Canada and are currently employed or were employed within the last six months, according to the index. Benchmark data was collected in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

The HR company, formerly known as Morneau Shepell, says participants are selected to be representative of the age, gender, industry, and geographic distribution in Canada. The same respondents take part each month to remove a sampling bias. Respondents are asked to consider the prior two weeks when answering each question.

LifeWorks added that online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.