For two years, the mental health of executives has been deteriorating. These professionals suffer in particular from work-related stress.
- There are no precise figures on the number of people affected. According to a study by Technologia, 3.2 million employees are at risk of burnout.
- Burn-out, also called professional exhaustion syndrome, is characterized by fatigue, disinvestment at work, a feeling of failure or even incompetence.
Work overload, exhaustion, stress: many executives suffer psychologically. According to a study by the Association for Executive Employment (APEC), one in four executives has seen their mental health deteriorate over the past two years. These psychological difficulties are part of a complicated context, between pandemic, war in Ukraine and rising prices.
Frequent difficulties
This APEC study, relayed by theAFP and quoted by Europe 1, is based on the responses of a representative sample of 1,000 executives (from the private sector, in and out of employment) to an online questionnaire, in August 2022. 55% of the executives surveyed feel overloaded at work, 54% claim to feel burnout and 54% intense stress. Nearly 2 out of ten executives had to take leave or take sick leave because of this burnout. In 2019, many executives were already experiencing difficulties at work. The website Cadremploi questioned more than 1,000 executives about burnout: 86% of respondents said they had already had a complete or partial burnout.
Managers more exposed
All executives are not equal in the face of this psychological suffering: managers are more exposed to work overload, 65% of them claim to suffer from it compared to 47% of non-managers. 62% of managers feel burnout, compared to 48% of non-managers. Finally, 64% suffer from intense stress among managers.
More than half of respondents believe that managers are vigilant about mental health issues in the workplace. However, colleagues are privileged interlocutors in the event of a problem: 60% of executives believe that they would confide in them in the event of psychological suffering.
Popular telework
The APEC study also reveals that executives are satisfied with the generalization of teleworking. 62% of executives surveyed believe that its implementation has had a positive impact on their mental health. From September 2020, a study by the consulting firm Greenworking, relayed by France information, attested to the benefits of remote work for employees. According to Clément Roucher, deputy director of the firm, people are “happier”, when working in this way. This would be explained in particular by the elimination of transport time, the improvement of productivity and concentration, but also by the longer time spent with loved ones.
