PerkBox and TalentPool on the mental health crisis in the UK workforce

Perkbox, an employee experience platform in Europe, has done some research with TalentPool, a talent matching platform in the UK, and have revealed the UK employees' most promoted perks for attracting young professionals. With wellbeing perks, the results aren't exactly ideal.

Through the analysis of 8,700 job advertisements in the country over the last year, the research has found that the perks most promoted by employers primarily to help combat stress issues are zero to none. Only 18% of employers advertised free or subsidized gym membership on their job specs. 

Furthermore, just 1% used yoga classes as a perk to attract candidates and none at all considered meditation as something valuable enough to add. Other employee wellness perks such as CiC programs did not get a mention either, signaling, at the very least, a lack of awareness around their existence and/or the value they represent to employees. 

Workplace stress affects most of our workforce in the UK and worldwide, with one of the largest known UK studies of stress levels reporting that 74% of people have felt so stressed that they have been overwhelmed or unable to cope. These findings may, therefore, be revealing the root cause of a serious problem - might wellness perks be undervalued? 

If so, this could be an issue worth its weight. Stress left untreated can lead to chronic stress or burnout. Both of these have many physical and mental health implications - which might even help explain why private healthcare, appears to be promoted by so many employers in the job advertisements studied in this research (28%). 

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