Research shows annual impact of overwork on health system
Employers may think they are shouldering a growing share of society’s rising health costs, but a new report on the costs of overwork suggests employers are partly to blame.
“Employers are able to get away with a lot of the cost-cutting and downsizing because of the costs of that strategy — which are ill health due to overwork — are being picked up by Canadian taxpayers in their support of the health-care system,” said professor Linda Duxbury, co-author of the report, Exploring the Link Between Work-Life Conflict and Demands on Canada’s Health Care System, published by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Consider these findings. Workers with too much to do in a given amount of time, when compared against workers with low levels of role overload, are:
•2.9 times more likely to say their health is fair or poor;
•2.6 times more likely to have sought care from a mental health professional; and
•2.4 times more likely to have received care on an outpatient basis.
Out of more than $100 billion a year in overall health costs, states the report, high role overload accounts for $1.8 billion a year in physician visits, $3.8 billion a year in hospital stays and $250 million a year in trips to the emergency room.
Duxbury said these are the only three measures available on a national level. “So the data is probably a very large underestimation of the linkage between work-life imbalance, overload and the costs to the health-care system.”
Overwork is strongly correlated with increased use of prescription drugs, increased visits to mental health professionals and other health-care professionals (see sidebar), but national data aren’t available for these dimensions, she noted.
“What’s just as important is we’ve been talking about wait times to see physicians, wait times for hospital beds. Our research shows that we can reduce the number of visits to family physicians by 25 percentage points if we can deal with the issue of role overload, and we can reduce the number of visits to the family physician if we can deal with the issues associated with caregiver strain,” said Duxbury.
“So perhaps rather than worrying about how many family physicians there are, what we have to do is say, are there other ways? How can we reduce the number of times people need to go see their family physicians? It looks like workload and support for caregiver strain are two ways to do that.”
The study polled 31,500 people working at large companies of 500 people or more. With that large a sample, said co-author Chris Higgins, a professor at the University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business, “we’re pretty confident that what we’re saying holds across all companies of 500 people or more.”
Had the study taken into consideration small organizations, where people often work without backup or replacements, the problem of overwork would be much graver, he said. He cautioned, however, that the findings were only correlations. In other words, one can’t say definitively that the increases in doctors’ visits or hospital stays weren’t caused by factors other than overwork.
The value of this report is that it pulled together the numbers and showed how employee wellness “is a business issue, not just an HR issue,” said Jane Petruniak, a Vancouver-based Watson Wyatt consultant specializing in group and health benefits. “It’s far more than what HR has control over. It’s management, it’s culture, it’s empowerment.”
One outcome that she hopes to see would be “CEOs and CFOs all over the country saying, ‘Oh, I guess I need to do something,’ because in reality, she added, most businesses still function with a “do more with less” mentality.
“I think when you start thinking in terms of running a car or running a factory, you know you can’t run it over a certain level without taking care of it or else you end up with bigger problems.”
The same rule applies to workers, she said. “We’re moving into a knowledge-intensive economy where the importance of the individual is even more paramount. And the absence of good maintenance programs to keep the human machinery working is absolutely what’s holding back a lot of Canadian companies.”
At Saskatchewan’s Department of Labour, executive director of the Work and Family Unit Judith Martin said she wants to see all stakeholders involved in developing solutions, including employers, unions, governments and community services.
“One criticism we have of research that comes out of Ottawa is (the federal government) funds the research but there’s no structure to follow through with recommendations. So you do wonder about the impact” of these types of reports, said Martin, whose job is to work with employers in both the public and private sectors to address work-life balance issues.
The federal government could play a strong leadership role by helping organizations measure the gains made through family-friendly policies by offering evaluation grants, for example. Employers that want to tackle overwork should also be prepared for a major culture change that can take two to three years before the effects show themselves, said Martin.
Attitudes have to change, including the kind of “what about me?” attitude among employees who are given to complaining about child-care provisions because they don’t have a need for the service, said Martin.
As an example of governmental support, Martin cited the introduction of a grant in the state of Victoria in Australia, which gives employers up to $50,000 to improve work-life balance.
And just as Petruniak pointed to Quebec’s prohibition on psychological harassment as a sign that legislators are taking an interest in addressing workplace stress, Martin sees hopeful signs in talk in Quebec of reducing the workweek to four days for new parents.
But Higgins stresses the role of individuals as well. “We as a society have decided that we’ll let our work life dominate our family life. I’d like to see individuals take control of their lives and say, ‘Perhaps my career isn’t as important as I thought it was. Perhaps my family is more important. Maybe I should allocate 10 more hours a week to my family than I currently do.”
“Employers are able to get away with a lot of the cost-cutting and downsizing because of the costs of that strategy — which are ill health due to overwork — are being picked up by Canadian taxpayers in their support of the health-care system,” said professor Linda Duxbury, co-author of the report, Exploring the Link Between Work-Life Conflict and Demands on Canada’s Health Care System, published by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Consider these findings. Workers with too much to do in a given amount of time, when compared against workers with low levels of role overload, are:
•2.9 times more likely to say their health is fair or poor;
•2.6 times more likely to have sought care from a mental health professional; and
•2.4 times more likely to have received care on an outpatient basis.
Out of more than $100 billion a year in overall health costs, states the report, high role overload accounts for $1.8 billion a year in physician visits, $3.8 billion a year in hospital stays and $250 million a year in trips to the emergency room.
Duxbury said these are the only three measures available on a national level. “So the data is probably a very large underestimation of the linkage between work-life imbalance, overload and the costs to the health-care system.”
Overwork is strongly correlated with increased use of prescription drugs, increased visits to mental health professionals and other health-care professionals (see sidebar), but national data aren’t available for these dimensions, she noted.
“What’s just as important is we’ve been talking about wait times to see physicians, wait times for hospital beds. Our research shows that we can reduce the number of visits to family physicians by 25 percentage points if we can deal with the issue of role overload, and we can reduce the number of visits to the family physician if we can deal with the issues associated with caregiver strain,” said Duxbury.
“So perhaps rather than worrying about how many family physicians there are, what we have to do is say, are there other ways? How can we reduce the number of times people need to go see their family physicians? It looks like workload and support for caregiver strain are two ways to do that.”
The study polled 31,500 people working at large companies of 500 people or more. With that large a sample, said co-author Chris Higgins, a professor at the University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business, “we’re pretty confident that what we’re saying holds across all companies of 500 people or more.”
Had the study taken into consideration small organizations, where people often work without backup or replacements, the problem of overwork would be much graver, he said. He cautioned, however, that the findings were only correlations. In other words, one can’t say definitively that the increases in doctors’ visits or hospital stays weren’t caused by factors other than overwork.
The value of this report is that it pulled together the numbers and showed how employee wellness “is a business issue, not just an HR issue,” said Jane Petruniak, a Vancouver-based Watson Wyatt consultant specializing in group and health benefits. “It’s far more than what HR has control over. It’s management, it’s culture, it’s empowerment.”
One outcome that she hopes to see would be “CEOs and CFOs all over the country saying, ‘Oh, I guess I need to do something,’ because in reality, she added, most businesses still function with a “do more with less” mentality.
“I think when you start thinking in terms of running a car or running a factory, you know you can’t run it over a certain level without taking care of it or else you end up with bigger problems.”
The same rule applies to workers, she said. “We’re moving into a knowledge-intensive economy where the importance of the individual is even more paramount. And the absence of good maintenance programs to keep the human machinery working is absolutely what’s holding back a lot of Canadian companies.”
At Saskatchewan’s Department of Labour, executive director of the Work and Family Unit Judith Martin said she wants to see all stakeholders involved in developing solutions, including employers, unions, governments and community services.
“One criticism we have of research that comes out of Ottawa is (the federal government) funds the research but there’s no structure to follow through with recommendations. So you do wonder about the impact” of these types of reports, said Martin, whose job is to work with employers in both the public and private sectors to address work-life balance issues.
The federal government could play a strong leadership role by helping organizations measure the gains made through family-friendly policies by offering evaluation grants, for example. Employers that want to tackle overwork should also be prepared for a major culture change that can take two to three years before the effects show themselves, said Martin.
Attitudes have to change, including the kind of “what about me?” attitude among employees who are given to complaining about child-care provisions because they don’t have a need for the service, said Martin.
As an example of governmental support, Martin cited the introduction of a grant in the state of Victoria in Australia, which gives employers up to $50,000 to improve work-life balance.
And just as Petruniak pointed to Quebec’s prohibition on psychological harassment as a sign that legislators are taking an interest in addressing workplace stress, Martin sees hopeful signs in talk in Quebec of reducing the workweek to four days for new parents.
But Higgins stresses the role of individuals as well. “We as a society have decided that we’ll let our work life dominate our family life. I’d like to see individuals take control of their lives and say, ‘Perhaps my career isn’t as important as I thought it was. Perhaps my family is more important. Maybe I should allocate 10 more hours a week to my family than I currently do.”
