Under pressure: stress at the workplace is increasing
According to a job study by the auditing and consulting firm EY, almost every second employee reports an increasing workload. More working hours or a young family are the main reasons for the lack of work-life balance. Nevertheless, more than one in two describe themselves as satisfied with their job. Four out of five employees are satisfied with their salary, but would be even more motivated by a variable salary component, the study further states. More than 1,000 employees in Switzerland were surveyed for the "EY Job Study 2016".
Employees in Switzerland are under increasing pressure and often find it difficult to reconcile family and job. Almost every second respondent (48 percent) reports that the demands at work have increased in recent years. For around one in seven employees (13 per cent), the strain has even "greatly increased".
Intensive communication and internationalization as causes
"The demands on employees have clearly increased," says Mario Vieli, Head of HR at EY. "There are numerous factors responsible for this: communication has become more intensive through e-mail, chat and messenger services, and the pressure on employees to be constantly available is increasing. In addition, internationalization has increased, which means more travel and work assignments outside of block times in order to be able to communicate with business partners in the US, Asia or elsewhere at any time."
For 37 percent of employees, the work-life balance - i.e. the compatibility of job and private life - has become more difficult, which is primarily due to increased demands at work: 42 percent of those surveyed who complain about a worsened work-life balance cite more working hours and more responsibility at work as the reason. One in four sees the cause in the private sphere.
Workload and satisfaction not a contradiction
Despite the increasing demands and the fact that their private lives are suffering as a result, the level of satisfaction among Swiss employees is high: almost two-thirds (62 percent) are "satisfied" and 32 percent describe themselves as "somewhat satisfied". Only one percent are "dissatisfied" with their work. "Even though the high stress on the one hand and the high satisfaction on the other look like a contradiction at first glance, they are not. Rather, they reflect the challenges and opportunities that today's working world offers. After all, work has become more interesting overall: international work, more responsibility for the individual, more variety and flatter hierarchies. This offers employees today unprecedented development opportunities, but also considerable challenges," Vieli adds to his analysis of the results of the "Job Study 2016" by the auditing and consulting firm EY (Ernst & Young).
Burden for men and women high
Both women and men report increasing demands: 51 percent of men say that their workload has increased, while the figure for women is only slightly lower at 45 percent. Among both women and men, more than one in three find it somewhat more difficult to combine work and private life: The work-life balance has worsened particularly for parents of preschool children (four to six years old): 81 percent of women and 53 percent of men report a worsening here. However, it is by no means only the children who make the work-life balance of young parents so difficult: When fathers of preschool-age children complain about a difficult work-life balance, the main reason they give, in addition to the children (57 percent), is increasing demands at work - 43 percent attribute the worsened work-life balance to an increased number of working hours. On average, full-time employed men work significantly more than full-time employed women. For example, 2 out of 3 men (66 percent) work more than 40 hours a week, but only 45 percent of women. For women, the ratio is reversed: for 63 percent of young working mothers, children are the reason for a lack of work-life balance, while only 15 percent give the reason of having to spend too much time in the office. Almost every second woman (45 percent) works part-time, compared to only 12 percent of men.
"In many households, women still do most of the child-rearing. Men tend to go full throttle at work at the same time and don't want to cut back - either at work or in their private lives. As a result, many men are working more hours for the sake of their careers, while at the same time taking on more responsibilities at home than they used to - with the result that they, too, have a hard time finding the right balance between work and private life," says Vieli. "It now also remains the task of companies to cushion the associated burden - for example, through flexible working time models or childcare options," Vieli concludes. This is also confirmed by the respondents, as 66 percent of Swiss employees would like a modern employer to offer flexible working time models above all. One in three would like the opportunity to work more from home (33 percent).
Employees rate the economic situation of companies positively
In Switzerland, 87 percent of respondents currently rate the economic situation of their own employer as "rather good" or "very good". According to the employees' assessment, the economic situation of their own company has hardly changed in the past three years. Employees also translate this into their expectations regarding wages: Every fourth employee expects marginally higher earnings for 2016 (an average increase of 0.7 percent). Here, employees in the association sector are significantly more optimistic than employees in the private sector.
"The increasing workload is also a consequence of the success of the Swiss economy in recent years," Vieli points out. "New distribution channels, new business models and innovative technologies are being developed, there is a lot to do in the Swiss business landscape. In order to anticipate all this in good time, companies and their employees have to work hard. The fact is that in the course of globalization, competition has increased in all industries, and with it the pressure to increase productivity and profitability. This also leads to increasing demands on individual employees."
Every third person is paid according to performance - men more than women
For 34 percent of Swiss employees, the salary has a success or performance component, whereby this proportion is slightly higher for men than for women and is significantly more widespread in the private sector than in the public sector and associations. Insurance (58 percent), business services (53 percent), and telecommunications and IT (47 percent) have the highest proportion of variable wage employees. For larger companies and with the level of hierarchy, the percentage of people with a variable wage component increases. For 9 out of 10 employees, the calculation method of the profit or performance component in the salary is comprehensible. Two out of three employees (and here the proportion of men is higher) are in favour of performance-related pay and more than half of the employees would, according to their own statements, increase their commitment at work if they were paid (more) performance-related. On average, men earn 45 percent more than women for a full-time workload, as men's gross annual earnings average CHF 77,500 and women's CHF 53,600. People working in telecommunications and IT are the most satisfied with their salary, followed by business service providers and people in agriculture and forestry. The least satisfied are people in the real estate sector and in trade. Basically, despite the sector and gender differences, almost nine out of ten employees (88 percent) in Switzerland are rather satisfied or satisfied with their remuneration.
Source: www.ey.com
