Hours and workload

Legislation to curb excessive working hours, the European Working Time Directive and the UK’s Working Time Regulations, is designed to protect workers’ health and safety, but that is negated to some degree by the UK opt-out and other flexibilities. Long hours are linked to “rising work pressures”, the TUC says, and 2013 saw a record amount of unpaid overtime worked, averaging seven hours and 48 minutes a week.

Workload, according to the CIPD, is the most common cause of stress (followed by non-work relationships/family, management style and relationships at work). Organisations that had made redundancies in the previous six months were considerably more likely to include stress among their most common causes of both short-term and long-term absence. Other research indicates that reduced workload/working hours is a common response by employers making adjustments for employees with mental health problems.