The recent Britain’s Got Talent final should be a warning sign for all us about the impact of exceptional and excessive pressure on our health and well-being. Susan Boyle was lifted from obscurity and placed ‘front of stage’ both nationally and internationally – all in the space of a few short months and with all the media hype and frenzy that attends celebrity. Her performances were outstanding, but her preparation for what was about to happen to her seemed to be minimal – it was just assumed that becoming a celebrity was a good thing and that there would be no problems. Judging by the outcome, the support she was given was also inadequate.
Most people are not as talented as Susan and few of us will be foisted into the limelight as quickly, but for many of us in jobs which are intrinsically stressful, overloaded, family-unfriendly and demanding the lack of help and support can have similar consequences.
In the recent government Foresight programme on Mental Capital and Wellbeing (www.foresight.gov.uk), it was highlighted by the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health that the annual costs of workplace stress to the UK economy were £25.9b per annum in terms of sickness absence, presenteeism (turning up to work but contributing little, if any, added value) and labour turnover. This doesn’t even include the roughly £5 Billion in the year for mental health-related incapacity benefit!
It is the fundamental responsibility of employers to look after the health and well-being of their employees – indeed, they have a legal duty of care to do so. It is also the responsibility of the individual themselves to take sensible steps to ensure that pressure does not turn to stress. Our support networks – at work and in life – are there to help us to make the right decisions in this respect and to cope when the balance is threatened. But we must also remember that there is often a cost to success – the cost to one’s personal health, to one’s family, friends and relationships, as well as to the job and organisation. Susan’s success and then collapse reminds us (and her) that balance between work and life is what we all need rather than aiming for success at all costs. That’s not just during these times, but it was ever thus as these lines from Shelley’s poem “Ode to the West Wind” highlights:
“Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!”
