Why German Companies Manage Employee Stress To Improve Corporate Productivity

Because the data reveal that stress is a - perhaps the - primary contributor to the workforce's inability to function at an optimal level.

This effects executives as well as others. And it underscores how the psychological factors affecting mental health impact performance as much or more as other influences. JL

Caitlin Schiller reports in Quartz:

Of a workforce of about 40 million, 4.1 million German workers have experienced work related distress, missing 15 work days a year. Psychological illness is to blame for 14% of missed work days in Germany, a 50% increase over 12 years. Of the ten health issues most commonly cited as the reasons German workers have taken time off, psychological issues have seen the steepest rise, from 12.1% in 2010 to 16.2% in 2016.
Frühstück, Rechnung, and quatschen are among the hundreds of colorful words I learned in preparation for my move to Germany. Shortly after arriving, however, I discovered something I hadn’t even considered: the sheer amount of English words I’d need to unlearn in order to make sense of my new home. Ask for a “Beamer” in Germany and you’ll be presented with a run-of-the-mill office projector. The average “public viewing” is corpse-free—you’ll just be watching football in a big, clamorous group. But the adopted English word whose German meaning stands out sharpest in my mind is “wellness.”
When Germans speak of a wellness weekend, they can either mean a spa getaway, or an actual location: a “Wellness.” In a country where you can’t toss a bath bead without hitting a few dozen such retreat centers, it’s not a word you’ll be getting away from. And really, that seems quite fitting; Germans care deeply about self care, and one such manifestation is their singularly healthy relationship to illness at work. German colleagues meet a sniffly “Guten morgen” with a stern directive to go home and rest—and don’t come back until you’re healthy! The rationale is simple: You can’t be productive if you don’t feel well. What’s more, rest is not the sole province of the sick. German employees count on four weeks of vacation a year, and also enjoy some of the shortest work weeks known to Europe. In the manufacturing sector, it’s standard to devote only 35 hours to moil—which is a far cry from the 49-hour work week the average full-time employed American can expect.
What Germans get right about work is this: Being productive requires more than just a strong work ethic—it calls for taking time out to take care of oneself. Self care might mean going home to nurse your cold, having a weekend away at a “Wellness,” or meeting up with friends after work. For Germans, productivity depends as much on that legendary Teutonic focus (which is real, let me tell you) as it does clocking out and being a whole person.
There’s a perfect metaphor for that attitude, but its origins aren’t German. The concept of “sharpening the saw” comes instead from American Stephen Covey, in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If you spend the whole day sawing away without taking the time to sharpen your saw, Covey posits, your work will suffer. And if we’re talking people, not power tools, that means taking care of your most vital resources: your physical, social, and mental wellbeing. Grant yourself adequate time to rest and recharge, he explains, and you’ll enjoy greater well-being and greater productivity. Clearly, a modification to the image of the all-work-no-play German is in order. Germans do take work very seriously, but they also enjoy being done with it.
All this isn’t to say that Germans are free from the stresses of modern employment. A Gallup poll from earlier this year showed that of a workforce of about 40 million, as many as 4.1 million German workers have experienced work-related mental or emotional distress. The chief executive of Techniker Krankenkasse, a public health insurance fund, says that “lifestyle diseases” are on the rise, with its customers missing more than 15 days of work a year on average. Psychological illness is to blame for 14% of missed work days in Germany, which reflects a 50% increase over 12 years. Furthermore, studies have shown that of the ten health issues most commonly cited as the reasons German workers have taken time off, psychological issues have seen the steepest rise, vaulting from 12.1% in 2010 to 16.2% in 2016.
Some German employers are taking measures to halt this trend. Volkswagen, for example, blocks email after office hours and releases them to inboxes only the next workday. A Volkswagen spokesman said that the company “respects relaxation time” and will only interrupt after the workday finishes in the case of emergencies. In 2014, there was even serious talk of making this practice nationwide, so concerned were German officials with the psychological havoc wrought by the never-done startup culture and work habits routine at big tech companies. Germans believe in doing a job thoroughly and well, but they also believe in sharpening the saw.