Keep your finger on the pulse and react immediately

Tens of thousands of Finns are still absent from work today due to work fatigue. Some of them face a long path to disability retirement. Early intervention could avoid huge amounts of human suffering and cost. If there is one thing management should invest in, it is keeping a constant finger on the pulse of the work community and reacting quickly.

The rise in fatigue is one of the most worrying phenomena in working life. According to the TTL report "How is Finland?", the incidence of work-related fatigue has increased over the past couple of years. Work well-being is at its worst among the youngest workers, those under 36 years of age. This does not bode well for the future.

A few months ago, Tanja Lappi, an occupational health psychologist from Helt, published a book entitled "Getting rid of work fatigue - Managing resilience in the workplace". Her main message is clear: many problems can be solved in the workplace, but the work community just does not or cannot address them. To this we would like to add one important observation that we have learned from our Style Meter.

Vibemetrics Phileometer is an anonymous and real-time digital service for listening to and engaging people, a way to stay on top of what's going on in the organisation and what's on the minds of employees. The measurement part of the Style Meter consists of a smile/rhyme selection and an open comment field.

"Total psychological safety is a daydream"

We have learnt that anonymity is really important for raising issues. There is a lot of talk today about community, psychological safety and community-based organisations, where people should in principle be able to say almost anything openly and publicly without fear of repercussions. This is not the reality now, and it never will be. There is so much competition, pressure and social commerce built into the world of work that total psychological safety is a daydream.

That's why the possibility to anonymously raise concerns about the work community and work organisation is key to listening to staff and developing the organisation together.