In a recent survey conducted with 1,000 workers who had been promoted as supervisors and managers, it was found that promotions resulted in increased mental strain and left the ambitious career-oriented employees with lesser time to visit a doctor. Economics and psychology researchers at the University of Warwick carried out the research.
The survey participants, who had been promoted in the last five years, were questioned about their health, mental fitness and the health services used by them. The analysis showed no improvement in the health of these people after their promotions. In fact, there was evidence of increased mental strain amongst these employees. The mental health of people who were promoted at work worsened by 10%, simultaneously their visits to the doctor become four-fifths as frequent as they used to be. This reduction in the visits was not due to the improved health of the employees, but due to the increased stress levels amongst the promoted staff, who could not give due importance to health and therefore had lesser motivation for such visits.
Chris Boyce, who was part of the research team, commented that getting a promotion clearly did not result in good health. Mental health actually deteriorates after such promotions – and to such an extent that the effect is long-term in nature. The reduced visits to the doctor were also worrying, since there were no indications of health improvement in the employees that would lead to such reduction.
Make sure that your company is not in the dark when it comes to new health and safety regulations. The other way to keep up-to-date is to make sure that you take advantage of the range of training such as first aid at work training available from reputable companies such as Workplace Law.
