Workers' Stress and Pain are Hurting Businesses' Bottom Line

Two new surveys indicate greater need for collaboration on better workplace conditions

CHICAGO

Pushed to tighten their belts, many of the nation's businesses may be overlooking one resource vital to their bottom lines -- the health of their workers, according to two studies released last week.

One in eight workers is suffering from pain that also hurts their productivity, costing an average of five working hours a week, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). 

The loss, which the studies claim is due more to a slow drain on daily productivity than outright absence, adds up to an annual cost of more than $61 billion for U.S. businesses -- a figure far higher than necessary.

The report's lead author, Dr. Walter Stewart, says many of those hours could be recovered if firms adopted awareness campaigns or pre-emptive measures like ergonomically friendly workstations, reported the Associated Press.

A second report released last week warns that 80 percent of surveyed workers say they plan to look for a new job as soon as the economy recovers, with many saying they are being pushed to do too much with too little help.

While only a fraction of those with wandering eyes will actually move on, the number is still "very, very high," says Frank Scanlon of the Society for Human Resource Professionals, which undertook the survey.

Nearly 40 percent of workers say they are clocking average weeks of at least 50 hours, yet feel unable to complain for fear of being pink-slipped like their former co-workers, according to the report from CNN.

"People have been traumatized by the last 15 years of downsizing and the last few years of recession," Joe Robinson, founder of the Work to Live Web site, told CNN. "Everyone's afraid they'll be next."

Institute for Global Ethics

For more information, see: 

Related Newsline <http://www.globalethics.org/newsline/members/issue.tmpl?articleid=10270316585937> story, Oct. 27 - 
Related Newsline <http://www.globalethics.org/newsline/members/issue.tmpl?articleid=10150212000836> research report, Oct. 15, 2002 - 
Related Newsline <http://www.globalethics.org/newsline/members/issue.tmpl?articleid=05270210135564> research report, May 27, 2002 -- 
JAMA page on study, "Lost Productive Time and Cost Due to Common Pain Conditions in the US Workforce,"  Vol. 290, No. 18, Nov. 12 -- 
Society for Human Resource Professionals .

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