Job quality: a route to healthier working lives

It doesn’t seem we’re taking it easy or gazing out of the window during these additional hours. UK workers have among the highest level of job demands and job strain. As shown in our report, some of the numbers on this are impressive: 58% of UK workers report regularly having to work to tight deadlines (among the highest rate in Europe) and 43% regularly have to work at very high speeds (in line with the European average).

Other data highlight the health outcomes of these aspects of our working lives: for example, around half of UK workers say they always or often come home from work exhausted. This has steadily got worse in the UK over the last two to three decades.

Excessive demands and job strain are issues that need serious attention. They go hand in hand with mental and physical ill-health and are no way to make the sustainable improvements in productivity that the UK desperately needs. Most of us would readily accept that work hits peaks and troughs, but when the peaks hit more-often-than-not, there should be no doubt you have a problem on your hands.

Solution #1: social support at work

What can employers or managers do to help? Obviously, many factors can come into play but a couple stand out – one in which the UK does reasonably well and one in which we don’t.

The relative plus point is workplace relationships: European-wide data shows that UK workers fare slightly better than average in having supportive colleagues and bosses. This might come as a surprise, given the frequent media coverage of bullying and discrimination, which affect about one in six UK workers. The overall figures on social support in no way negate the importance of promptly and thoroughly dealing with conflict and incivility when it arises, but they do suggest that most of us do well in our workplace relationships. This is something UK plc can build on.

Solution #2: loosen control, increase autonomy

A negative point is a particular aspect of how we are managed. UK workers are relatively unlikely to experience work autonomy in how they do their work and the pace at which they work. For example, 37% of UK workers say they can choose or change their methods of work, compared to a European average of 47%. Work autonomy or job control is important for various reasons, including that it makes our jobs more meaningful and rewarding. But it’s especially important in the context of job strain, as it helps people manage the demands that are placed on them. Without it we become disempowered and less able to handle periods of intensity.

There is always of course a need for managerial control. Not just for organisational effectiveness, but also for people’s wellbeing: giving workers too much autonomy without the other resources that they need can be akin to dumping on them, offloading more responsibility for no more pay. The question is one of balance. In general, UK managers, HR leaders and employers do well to consider how they can loosen control, and empower employees that bit more.

Fundamentals: how do employers see their workers?

In one respect, these issues may boil down to a basic question of outlook. As a default, do employers and managers try to control and push workers, or empower, support and motivate them? In effect, is the assumption that people are slackers at heart, or talent which needs to be trusted and given wings to fly?

One might like to think the norm is the latter – surely, we all treat people as responsible adults? But discourse on the unprecedented rise in homeworking might suggest otherwise. WFH is another area in which we need balance. As well as potential benefits – more focused work, reduced commuting time, better work-life balance and more energised workers – there are also challenges of working virtually and benefits of meeting face-to-face.  But the backlash has sometimes reached levels of pillorying, with some seeming to view WFH as a skive, pure and simple. Jacob Rees-Moggs’ passive aggressive notes to civil servants working at home (“Sorry you were out…”) will live long in memory. While more recently, statistics on workers napping at home have been described as ‘sleeping on the clock’ and ‘costing companies’, rather than a sign of overwork, or a potential way to increase work health and, indeed, enable people to perform better.

Managing people well – and for that matter, creating effective employment policy – will always be a matter of striking the right balance as much as anything else, so it's a matter of judgment. But as we seek to do this, it’s worth bearing in mind some key features of our current situation. Firstly, too many UK workers work excessive hours and it doesn’t have to be this way. And secondly, the UK isn’t good at balancing the demands placed on workers and the autonomy or control they have. We can and should do better.

Our research report looks into these issues in more detail. It will inform the recommendations in the Commission for Healthier Working Lives final report, to be published in spring 2025.

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Any views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Institute as a whole.