When Cigna Europe first announced the launch of its ‘Whole Health’ initiative, CEO Arjan Toor (pictured) emphasised that the holistic programme aimed to provide support to insureds across all areas of life, in sickness and in health alike.
Critical to the five-year programme is its creation of timely, relevant research into what’s impacting the mental and physical wellbeing of individuals. And the short answer, according to its recent 360-wellbeing report which surveyed some 12,000 global individuals, is - a lot. The report highlighted several worrying concerns with 97% of 18-to 34-year-olds experiencing burnout while 86% are reporting major stress.
Seventy-six per cent (76%) of people in Europe identified as ‘stressed’ in the report, Toor said, while 14% of these are experiencing ‘unmanageable stress’. There are a number of different key drivers behind these figures, he explained, and the interplay of these ties in closely with the ethos behind Cigna’s ‘Whole Health’ approach to wellbeing.
“What we’re definitely seeing, especially in the younger age brackets, is that concerns about money are a really important driver,” he said. “Looking at the age band of 18-to-24, 39% of people say that money is a leading cause of stress for them. And against the backdrop of inflation, the rising cost-of-living and the energy crisis, that’s understandable. These people are at an age where it’s difficult to make ends meet anyway so being faced with all this adversity has an immediate impact.”
While there is variation between different age brackets, some concerns are being shared across the board. Across every age range, Cigna is seeing that people are worrying about the future and struggling with creating a healthy work-life balance. The notion of working from home is wonderful, he said, as it offers a lot of flexibility, but it has also blurred the line between work lives and personal lives.
“What we saw in the survey, as well is that 78% of people say, ‘I feel that I have to be always on’,” he said. “And that is definitely leading to a significant number of people experiencing stress, but also actually experiencing symptoms of burnout. So, across the population, about 73% are saying they’re experiencing symptoms of burnout, which I find a shocking number.
“The symptoms of burnout are serious, we’re no longer talking about feeling a little stressed or a little bit busy… I think this is a big issue and a big concern. A lot of it has to do with a combination of concerns about the future, the financial situation that people are in but also this constant feeling that you have to be ‘on’.”
The latter concern is not limited simply to individuals’ working lives, he said, but also to social and familial pressures. This is especially pertinent to the younger generations, many of whom are facing significant pressure to keep up with their peers via the scrutiny of social media and are registering fear of missing out if they don’t manage to do so. Each of these attributes is adding to the level of stress experienced by individuals which, in turn, is leading to symptoms of burnout.
Cigna’s ‘Whole Health’ strategy emphasises the interplay between each of these factors, Toor said, particularly in the context of the COVID crisis which did change how people think about their health, their wellbeing and their priorities in life. The same is true for organisations, he said, which were also faced with reassessing how they support their people to deliver maximum value while empowering them to be the best version of themselves.
“That’s an important trend that we’ve seen emerge,” he said. “And, of course, that’s also fuelled by the war for talent, where it’s become a lot harder to attract and retain the best people. I think employers increasingly understand that they have a role to play in supporting their staff members, and so to be able to retain them and attract other good people from the marketplace.
“In addition to that, we now have a war in Europe which has led to the energy crisis, and we’re also seeing significant inflation. And all of these things, as well as the cost-of-living increase, have put a lot of additional pressure on people… Our wellbeing report is clearly indicating that people are more stressed and worried about the future, and that means there’s going to be an even greater focus on helping people and supporting them to improve their overall health and wellbeing going forward.”
What’s critical to register is that this is not just about physical health or mental health individually, but rather about the connection that exists between them - and about recognising the ‘stressors’ that sit in an individual’s immediate environment which have an impact on their overall wellbeing. There’s little denying that COVID has had extensive impacts, Toor noted, but many of these factors were in play before COVID, they were just less visible.
“When you work together in an office, it was easier to look people in the eye and know if something was wrong,” he said. “But working from home made it a lot harder for people to properly check in with colleagues and pick up on the early signals of stress and mental-health related issues and try to address those.”
COVID created new levels of isolation as it decreased that visibility, he said, but it has also reshaped the relationship between the employer and the employee, which is becoming increasingly clear as people take a step back and reflect on their relationship with their workplace.
“That’s also what our research indicates,” Toor said. “We’re seeing a lot of people jumping to other jobs or actively reconsidering another job. Among the younger generation, around one-in-three people are actively looking for another job as we speak. So, if you think about that as an employer, you’ve got one out of three in your workforce actively considering leaving you. That’s a huge problem. And COVID has definitely made a lot of it worse but it’s not all new and a lot of this already existed prior to COVID.”
How are you seeing mental wellbeing initiatives play out? Feel free to sound off in the comment box below.
