Workers are increasingly reporting feeling stressed at work, which is a problem for employers in terms of how they provide relief for them but also in how they respond to workers compensation claims that allege workplace pressures significantly contributed to or caused an illness or injury.
Work-related anxiety is not new and comes in many forms, ranging from the physical and mental stress that many manual workers have endured for centuries to the psychological pressures on professional employees performing crucial tasks and the extreme expectations that sales staff often live with.
Traditional methods of dealing with the issue, such as a smoke break or a three-martini lunch, are also well known but clearly problematic.
In recent times, the issue has been exacerbated by technological developments that have blurred the lines between work and personal life by enabling people to work at any time and in any place. While the added convenience may be seen as a benefit, many people must long for the days when they could leave their workplace at 5 p.m. and not have to be concerned about work again until 9 a.m. the next day; many others are too young to have experienced such an idyllic world.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the trend and added to or intensified workplace stressors, including health and safety concerns, lack of personal interaction, and the numerous pressures unrelated to work that dominated people’s lives.
As we report here, workplace stress is also a factor in workers comp claims, with employees claiming they suffered stress-related illnesses as a direct result of burnout at work. A New York appeals court recently ruled against two employees and other courts should be careful about opening the door to such claims, unless the working environment is identified as the principal contributor to the illness. Few would doubt that work contributes to stress, but often there are factors outside the workplace, including pre-existing conditions, that contribute to the problem.
That does not let employers off the hook in terms of supporting workers and prioritizing employee well-being. They have a duty to care for their workers, and adjusting work hours, providing stress management programs, engaging in empathetic communication, and ensuring workers are not overloaded can go a long way to reducing workplace stress.
Workers comp has evolved in numerous ways since the “grand bargain” between employers and workers was sealed more than a century ago, but it is still fundamentally designed to respond to work-related injuries. The seriousness of the problem of stress in the workplace should not be diminished, but expanding workers comp benefits to cover illnesses or injuries that are not predominantly caused by work will only drive up claims costs and potentially have far-reaching consequences for the whole system.