Self-care encourages awareness of a person’s own mental, physical and emotional health and is about putting practices and activities in place to look after them. It can mean different things for different people and can encompass a wide range of elements including sleep, diet, movement, stress management, self-esteem and resilience to name but a few.

Our findings suggest that self-care is a concept that corporate employees could benefit from embracing. And while self-care is something that ultimately they need to do for themselves, employers can play a pivotal role.  

Stress, sleep, satisfaction – it’s all connected

More than one in three employees report feeling that their current stress levels are higher today compared to a year ago. On top of this, satisfaction with certain aspects of life is low. Over 50% are extremely dissatisfied with their sleep, their social life and their physical health, and 60% have the same feelings about their diet.

The most common issue with work-life balance is employees feeling too tired from work to do household jobs, with 73% experiencing it at least several times a month. Many employees also struggle with getting sufficient sleep. 68% of the employees we identified as being in the 'high stress' group stayed up later than planned a few nights a week or more. If we take sleep prioritisation as just one example of self-care, we can see there is an opportunity for improvement. Interestingly, the research showed that the low stress group are much less likely to stay up later than planned. This indicates a clear link between stress levels and sleep.

Mental health in the workplace

44% of employees strongly believe that mental health issues in the workplace have increased in recent years. 56% believe they’ll have increased health problems in future if their current stress levels continue. Meanwhile, 26% of the same group strongly believe that they need to take care of their mental health. When these three stats are taken into consideration within the context of self-care, it indicates that employees are ready to consider it. But is that consideration matched by Irish employers? For instance, only 9% of employees agree that their employer has been active in supporting and protecting their mental health.

Workplace relationships

While nothing new in the Irish corporate workplace, the pandemic brought about a huge rise in colleagues communicating through a screen. Even now, post-COVID, virtual interactions still play a large part of everyday corporate life. Despite this, our findings show that employees have managed to maintain positive and productive relationships with their colleagues. This suggests a resilience in adapting to changing work environments and maintaining meaningful professional connections. This is particularly important for job satisfaction and overall happiness at work and is something your company should continually seek to foster. 

*Please note some services and benefits are plan dependent.