China workplace mental health survey report

The detection rate of mild or above psychological discomfort among domestic workplace workers is 62.3%, and 89% of the symptoms are directly caused by the workplace. However, only 17% of companies have established a systematic employee psychological support mechanism. "Individuals are forced to bear the burden, the company is perfunctory, and third-party services are superficial" are the core contradictions facing the current intervention of workplace psychological problems.

This conclusion is not made up by sitting in the office. We visited 6 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Wuhan from March to June this year and collected samples from 47 large, medium, small, and micro enterprises. From algorithm posts in large Internet companies to assembly line workers in county manufacturing, from training doctors in tertiary hospitals to one-on-one teachers in education and training institutions, they basically cover the main population in the current workplace. Among them, those born between 1985 and 1995 account for more than 83%, and they are also a group with a high incidence of psychological problems in the workplace. This kind of pressure is like boiling a frog in warm water. Instead of suddenly giving you a slap in the face, you will have to work an extra hour today, add an extra KPI tomorrow, and post it in the group immediately after get off work the day after tomorrow. By the time you realize something is wrong, you will have been unable to sleep all night long.

When I was working with an e-commerce company in Hangzhou last month, I met a 32-year-old operations manager who had been working 14 hours a day for 21 days in a row during the preparation period for Double 11. He could only sleep 3 or 4 hours a day for 3 months in a row. He was already moderately anxious about going to the hospital for a check-up, and he did not dare to submit a note to the company when the doctor issued a note. Last year, a colleague in their department took two weeks of sick leave due to depression. When he came back, he was directly transferred to a customer service position that no one wanted to go to. After two months of being pushed up and down, he left. “Everyone assumes that saying you have a mental problem is equivalent to admitting that you can't handle things. Instead of being targeted, it's better to handle it yourself. At worst, just quit if it's not possible." When he said this, his fingers were still brushing the real-time conversion rate data in the background, and he was even changing the activity plan in between words.

Interestingly, regarding this issue, the views of businesses and academia are almost at two extremes. Many HR people in manufacturing and traditional industries I have interacted with always feel that today's young people are just squeamish. "We used to work two shifts in the factory and only had one day off a month, and there were not so many problems." Many companies even regard "emotional stability" as a core requirement for recruitment. The subtext is that no matter how much work is added or how many grievances you suffer, you must not be emotional. However, follow-up studies in the field of clinical psychology have completely different conclusions: the core of current workplace stress has never been the working hours, but the "sense of uncontrollability" - the KPI just set in the morning can double in the afternoon, and the project you are still working on this week may be optimized next week. After get off work, you have to reply immediately to the group chat, and you have to be on call at any time even when you are on vacation. This uncertainty of "not knowing what will happen next second" is much more psychologically draining than continuous overtime work.

When I implemented the EAP (Employee Assistance Program) for a leading car company in the first half of the year, the boss's initial request was to "conduct a half-day stress management lecture, take some photos and post it on the public account." To put it bluntly, it was just a formality to meet regulatory requirements. As a result, half of the people took leave on the day of the lecture and did not come. Those who came were all editing PPTs and responding to messages. When the lecture was over, no one even took the brochure we printed. Later, we struggled with the management for almost a month and changed the entire plan to "anonymous online assessment + free one-on-one confidential consultation + special anti-workplace bullying training for management". It was clearly stipulated that all consultation content could only be seen by consultants, and HR and management could not touch half of it. After three months of running like this, the number of psychological-related demands actively reported by employees increased from 3 to 47 per month, and the voluntary turnover rate of the entire department dropped by 4.2 percentage points. To put it bluntly, EAPs in many companies are useless. It’s not that employees don’t need them, but that no one dares to use them. If you make a consultation call and say that you think your boss is a PUA, then HR can pass the conversation record to your leader’s ears. No one is stupid.

Let’s talk about a survey result that is quite counter-intuitive: in our statistics this time, the psychological discomfort detection rate of freelancers with a stable customer base is only 28%, which is lower than the 31% of employees in the system. An independent designer who has been working for five years told me that she now only takes three orders a month and earns one-third less than when she was a design director at an Internet company. But she no longer has to get up at two in the morning to change the plan that her boss thinks is "not festive enough", nor does she have to deal with wine parties and meaningless department meetings. "I can decide by myself how much work I will do today and what orders I will take. This alone is much better than earning tens of thousands more yuan." You see, what everyone wants is never to not work at all, but to at least have a sense of control over their work.

Nowadays, many people on the Internet say that psychological problems in the workplace are all caused by exploitation by bosses. As long as salary increases, weekend breaks, and no overtime are all solved, this is not true. We investigated a leading financial company in Shenzhen with an average annual salary of RMB 700,000. It strictly enforces five days off and two days off and never compels overtime. Still, 34% of its employees were found to be moderately anxious. The core reason is the 20% annual elimination rate for those at the bottom. People at the same level have to do more than three big projects every year to stay. "It seems that you don't have to work overtime, but if you don't do it, you will be fired next year. During your breaks, you will be thinking about how to compare yourself to others." So now, different groups have completely different opinions on how to solve this problem: workers here call for strict implementation of labor laws, keeping the bottom line of rest, at least no need to reply to work messages after work ； The business side feels that it is necessary to balance operating pressure and employee welfare. The company cannot make money to support its employees. ； Academic circles suggest that psychological support should be included in the standard process of human resources management and should not be regarded as an optional benefit. No one's answer is absolutely correct. It is a multi-party game process.

By the way, there is another very interesting little data: employees who can fish openly for 10-20 minutes every day have an anxiety detection rate that is 23% higher than that of employees who do not touch fish at all and even run to drink water. Are you saying it's ironic? In the past, companies always felt that it was cost-effective to fill every minute of employees' time. Now it seems that leaving 10 minutes for everyone to stand by the window, smoke a cigarette and chat about gossip can actually make everyone feel better.

We did this survey not to sell anxiety, nor to take sides and criticize anyone. To put it bluntly, mental health in the workplace is never a problem that can be solved by any one party: you can’t let employees bear the pressure of being optimized at any time while requiring them to be “emotionally stable”.” ； We cannot allow companies to compete for market share and performance while requiring them to be like charities and not conduct assessments at all. The balance point in the middle has to be slowly refined. At least now more and more people are willing to put this issue on the table, instead of treating depression and anxiety as synonyms for "bad personality" and "poor ability to withstand stress", which is already a step forward.