An OpinionWay survey commissioned by the MMA Entrepreneurs du Futur corporate foundation assesses the state of health of the managers of French micro and small businesses.
The MMA Entrepreneurs du Futur corporate foundation surveyed French micro and small business leaders to find out about their physical and mental fitness. According to this survey OpinionWayconducted with a sample of 1,501 entrepreneurs, the managers of French VSEs and SMEs “feel both useful and happy in their work, but are also hard hit by stress and work overload”.
Stress and accumulated hours
Stress is a well-known problem in the world of work. Here, 70% of respondents say they suffer from it in their daily lives and 6% believe that they spend “extremely stressful days”. In question, the work overload for 57% of those questioned, the lack of cash for 53% of them and the uncertainties on the activity for 48%.
The stress of deadlines and objectives push the leaders of these companies to accumulate hours. They thus link in average 50 hours per week (56 hours for farmers), when 21% of them work more than 60 hours per week and that nearly one in 10 executives works more than 70 hours. However, being under heavy pressure at work can have a considerable impact on health and lead to weight gain.
Sleep disturbances and back pain
With such a rhythm and such constraints, it is therefore difficult to reconcile professional and private life: 39% admit that they cannot achieve this. A rate that rises to 46% among farmers and 56% among health professionals. This difficulty leads 32% of entrepreneurs to feel isolated (including 5% who say they are very isolated).
If globally 95% consider themselves in good health, 79% say they are in good physical shape (even if back pain and joint pain are the most common ailments) and 86% in good mental health, many of them suffer from sleep disorders: more than a third frequently feel tired (36% often always). And they are only 8% to have been stopped by their doctor in the last 12 months.
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