Luxembourg: Workers prone to stress and burn-out at work
Published: 6 October 2011
Through itssurvey ‘Well-being at work in Luxembourg 2010’carried out by TNS-ILRES in December 2009 to January 2010, the Luxembourg Chamber of Employees (CSL) sought to provide an insight into the feelings of Luxembourg workers in 2010 about their workplace. More than 1,500 employees (both Luxembourg residents and cross-border workers from Belgium, France and Germany) from various economic sectors were asked to answer questions on a range of issues including health and safety, work and society, psychosocial demands ofwork, andergonomics in the workplace.Astriking finding is the high proportion of workers (90%) who claim to have experienced some stress at work, with 20% admitting to having felt burn-out.
Through itssurvey ‘Well-being at work in Luxembourg 2010’carried out by TNS-ILRES in December 2009 to January 2010, the Luxembourg Chamber of Employees (CSL) sought to provide an insight into the feelings of Luxembourg workers in 2010 about their workplace. More than 1,500 employees (both Luxembourg residents and cross-border workers from Belgium, France and Germany) from various economic sectors were asked to answer questions on a range of issues including health and safety, work and society, psychosocial demands ofwork, andergonomics in the workplace.Astriking finding is the high proportion of workers (90%) who claim to have experienced some stress at work, with 20% admitting to having felt burn-out.
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Introduction
The survey, Le bien-être au travail au Luxembourg en 2010 [Well-being at work in Luxembourg in 2010],was carried out by market research consultants TNS-Ilres on behalf of:
Luxembourg Chamber of Employees (CSL);
Confederation of Independent Trade Unionsof Luxembourg (OGB-L);
Luxembourg Mental Health League (Ligue luxembourgeoise d’hygiène mentale).
Purpose of the survey
The survey explored the current situation of well-beingat work in Luxembourg in 2010. According to CSL, the issue had not been considered before and the first requirement was to obtain an overview of the topic before carrying out a detailed interpretation and analysis of the survey results.
According to David Büchel from CSL,no one event initiated the project but the global economic crisis and growing media coverage of suicide and stress at work undeniably influenced the choice of subject. CSL interest in this topic comes from its mission to provide members and affiliates with training activities and to promote well-being at work.
Definition of well-being at work
The definition of well-beingat work used for the survey was borrowed from Belgian legislation, specifically the Act of 4 August 1996 on thewell-being of workers in the performance of their work.Belgian law defines well-being at work through six themes:
safety at work;
health and hygiene at work;
psychosocial load at work (working conditions, development, usefulness, stress, conflicting situations, suicide);
ergonomics;
place of work;
work in society (well-being, continuous vocational training, professional options).
These themes inspired the design of the Luxembourg survey questionnaire.
Survey methodology
The survey was carried out in Luxembourg between December 2009 and January 2010. The survey findings were published in March 2010.
Interviews were carried out using computer-aided telephone interviewing (CATI) and computer-aided web interviewing (CAWI) methods. Employees were asked to answer the questionnaire and each of the six generic themes was assessed separately to provide general trends. The average duration of an interview was 15 minutes.No data were provided in the survey report on the non-response rate.
Age and residence place of respondents
The survey involved a sample of 1,537 active workers over 18 years old of both sexes (951 men and 586 women). Of those interviewed during the survey, 903 were Luxembourg residents and 634 were cross-border workers (156 from Belgium, 322 from France and 156 from Germany). The term ‘cross-border worker’ refers to people who work in Luxembourg but live in one of the three countries that share a border with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Figure 1 shows the distribution of the respondents by age and residence.
Figure 1: Age and residence place of respondents
Source: Le bien-être au travail au Luxembourg en 2010
Sectors represented
The survey covered 10 sector groupings and one category combining ‘other sectors’. Banking and insurance was the most represented sector with 19% of respondents.The cleaning and security services sectorsrepresented less than 3% of respondents (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Economic sectors represented
Source: Le bien-être au travail au Luxembourg en 2010
Survey results
The following analysis draws out thesignificant and most obvious findings for the six themes.
Health and safety at work
Just under a third (28%) of those interviewed claimed to be exposed to therisk of occupational injury and 10% classed this exposure as ‘important’. To the question ‘Are risks of injuries in your professional activity numerous?’, 10% of employees responded ‘absolutely’ and 19%replied ‘rather yes’. This trend was particularly markedin the craft and construction (53%), social and health care (49%), cleaning and security services (47%) and industry and manufacturing (40%) sectors. Employees in these sectors appeared to be the most likely to be exposed to numerous risks of injury.
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) were suffered by about a quarter of respondents and tended to increase with age. The majority of respondents claimed to suffer from such disorders‘occasionally’, while 6% said they were in ‘continuous’ pain. The sectors the most concerned were social and health care, commerce, construction and craft.
Exposure to dangerous substance(s) was described by 21% of social and health care workers and 19% of those working in industry and manufacturing as being ‘continuous’ or ‘frequent’. Shiftworkers seemed the most concerned by this issue, with 15% also describing it as ‘continuous’ or ‘frequent’.
Awareness campaigns
Astonishing findings on preventing accidents and in the area of health and hygiene emerged from the questioning. The survey found that one-third of employees had not been subject to any action by employees to improve awareness of these issues over the past three years. Moreover, about 11% of interviewed workers did not even know if their enterprise had carried out such prevention campaigns over the past three years. The ICT sector in particular attracted attention as 51% of interviewees working in this sector reported an absence of awareness actions in their enterprise during this timeframe. Even more significant was the high rate (40%) of workers from the cleaning and security services sectorswho had not been subject to any awareness campaign during the past three years despite their significant exposure to risk of developing MSD.
As well as the questioning over the existence of recent awareness campaigns, two-thirds of employees reported that their enterprise had no culture of preventing health and hygiene relatedrisks.
The survey findings suggest that the bigger the organisation, the more widespread are prevention campaigns. Generally speaking, the report’s authors concluded that companies with more than 500 employees are more likely to have a prevention culture.
Psychosocial load fromwork
Stress at work
What is striking when addressing the issue of psychosocial load from work is the proportion of employees who reported feelingstress at work, with 90% of the interviewees claiming to feel stress. For nearly half (47%), this feeling was ‘occasional’, but for a third it was ‘frequent’ and even ‘continuous’ for 13%. Table 1 summarises categories where stress was found to be particularly prevalent.
The social and health care andfinancial sectors stand apart with a higher rate of workers (53%) who claimed to ‘continuously’ or ‘frequently’ work under stress. These two sectors are narrowly followed by the education and transport sectors with 51 and 50%respectively of employees feeling at least ‘frequently’ stressed at work.
Category | Percentage of employees claiming ‘continuous’ or ‘frequent’ stress at work |
|---|---|
| Large companies (more than 500 employees) | 50% |
| Luxembourg residents | 47% |
| Shift workers | 48% |
More than half of interviewees qualified their stress as ‘negative’ especially in the transport, financial, education, social and health care sectors where the rateswere higher than the average (Figure 3).
However, the survey did not find any gender bias to stress at work. The authors of the survey report therefore concluded that, since stress is not linked to either gender or age, it is above all linked to the nature of the performed activity.
Figure 3: Nature of stress
Source: Le bien-être au travail au Luxembourg en 2010
Burn-out
One in five employees interviewed for the survey reported experiencing burn-out at work, with a peak in the education (38%), social and health care (24%) and cleaning and security services (24%)sectors (Figure 4). The proportion of workers impacted by burn-out is more significant than the average for people performing shiftwork (23%) and in companies with more than 500 employees (24%). According to the survey results, burn-out does not seem be linked with employees’ age.
Figure 4: Burn out feeling at work
Source: Le bien-être au travail au Luxembourg en 2010
Private life
The survey makes a passing reference to private life, with participants being asked to indicate whether their relatives reproached them for a lack of availability due to their job’s demands (that is, workload). For 55% the response was ‘yes’; 4% reported ‘continuous’ reproaches, 13%‘frequent’ and 38%‘occasional’ blaming. Employees in the transport (27%), cleaning and security services (26%) and ICT (21%)sectors reported their relatives ‘continuously’ and ‘frequently’ blamed their workload for their lack of availability outside work.
Accord between personal and corporate values
Up to 32% of employees in the financial and 35% in the cleaning and security services sectors claimed not to share their organisation’s values. Apart from those two striking cases, employees seemedto generally agree with the corporate values of their enterprise. This is notably true for the education sector where up to 83% of workers agreed with corporate values as well as for 79% of workers in the social and health care, and craft and construction sectors.
Job description and remuneration
Some 77% of participants acknowledged they had clear job descriptions and 68% of them thought the pay they received was appropriate for the work they performed (Figure 5).Nonetheless, this trend was strongly questioned in the hotel, restaurant and catering (Horeca) and commerce sectors where 43% of employees considered the work they performed deserved better compensation. This view was shared by 40% of young workers (that is, the 18–29 age group).
Figure 5: Remuneration in accordance with work performed
Source: Le bien-être au travail au Luxembourg en 2010
Assessment of relationships with colleagues and atmosphere in the workplace
Nine per cent of people working in the education, social and health care sectors stated they had ‘poor’ relationships with their colleagues. However, this finding is relatively marginal as 93% of interviewees described the relationships with their colleagues as ‘being good’.The sector where relationships seemed to be particularly good was the transport sector where 97% of employees described themselves as ‘satisfied’.
As well as relationships with colleagues,the survey also asked about the general atmosphere in the workplace. On this issue, 25% of employees in the financial sector described the atmosphere as ‘being bad’. However, the majority of ICT workers (87%) reported working in a ‘good’ atmosphere.
Conflicting relationship with direct supervisors
In the ICT sector, the good atmosphere in the workplace is probably related to good relationships with managers since 92% of the employees indicated a lack of conflict in their relationship with their direct supervisors. Contrary to relationships between colleagues, 24% of employees in the transportsector reported conflicts with their direct supervisors; 71% of those who had conflicting relations with their direct supervisors also felt they were subject to mobbing (CSL explicitly asked for the term ‘mobbing’ to be used in the survey).
Communication and information sharing
The financial sector was the place where communication and information sharing was the poorest, with 47% of its employees reporting a lack of communication. In the craft and construction sectors, communication and information sharing appeared to work well since 84% of employees were ‘satisfied’ as were 74% of employees in the education sector. In general, the survey found that the smaller the organisation (up to 50 employees) the higher the satisfaction rate.
Verbal and physical aggression in the workplace
The survey found that 31% of those interviewed was subject to verbal aggression in the context of work whether ‘continuously’ (1%), ‘frequently’ (4%) or ‘occasionally’ (26%). Just over half (54%) of those victims stated that the author of the verbal aggression belonged to the enterprise; for 27%, the author was external and, for 19%, the author was external and internal. Less than the half (46%) the reported incidences of aggression were committed by clients. The majority (75%) of verbal aggression came from colleagues. Once again, transport (10%) was one of the most affected sectors alongside the Horeca and commerce sectors (9%) as well as social and health care (9%) (that is, describing verbal aggressions as ‘continuous’ or ‘frequent’).
Although the majority (93%) of those interviewed had never experienced physical aggression, the remaining 7% had faced such assaults ‘frequently’ (1%) or ‘occasionally’ (6%);19% of the victims worked in the social and health care sector, 15% worked in the transport sector and 11% in the public sector.The survey revealed an equal proportion of in-house and external perpetrators of physical aggression.
Addictions to alcohol, medicines and drugs
There may be a parallelism between proportions of aggressive behaviourin the workplace and addiction issues since the transport and public sectors are among those found by the survey to be the most affected by employees’ addiction to alcohol, medicines or drugs. The presence of addiction issues was acknowledged by 48% of interviewees from the public sector, 40%from the transport sector and 37% from the industry and manufacturing sectors. This phenomenon was mostly deplored by men (34%compared to 27% of women) and by Luxembourg residents (37%).
Suicide
The survey found that 16% of employees had colleagues who had personally been confronted by the issue of suicide in a work context. This category covered 20% of Luxembourg residents. The public (29%), education (24%), social and health care (23%) and transport (21%) were the sectors where employees most reported having colleagues in this position.
The survey also asked about suicide intentions, with 10% of interviewees admitting to having experienced such feelings (1% on a ‘frequent’ basis and 9%‘occasionally’). Furthermore, 6% of interviewees claimed to have planned to commit suicide. The two highest sectors for positive answers to this question were finance (9%) and social and health care (10%). The planning of suicide was mostly observed among the youngest group of workers (that is, 18–29 years old), with a rate of 11%. The trend was also particularly marked among people on shift work (10%) and those whose educational background was limited to high school (9%).
This trend is confirmed by the high proportion of suicide attempts reported among these two categories of workers since 5% of 18–29 year-olds and 5% of employees on shiftwork admitted they had attempted suicide. Social and health care professions were once again strongly represented with a rate of 9%, followed by Horeca and commerce (5%). In total, 3% of those interviewed admitted having attempted suicide.
Ergonomics and place of work
One of the ways the survey assessed well-being at work was through questions about ergonomics at the workplace. Up to 23% of respondents considered their workstation as ‘rather wrongly’ or ‘not at all’ fitting their needs. Of these, 33% were employed in the social and health care sector. A similar proportion was found in workers in the transport (28%) and the ICT (27%) sectors.
Nearly half (48%) of interviewees complained about the quality of the space put at their disposal for breaks. Nearly a fifth (19%) of employees indicated that their enterprise’s premises did not include such dedicated spaces.The social and health care sector was again far worse than other sectors as 59% of employees reported problems or a total absence of space for breaks.
Well-being at work
The survey report concludes with an overview of the position of the theme of work in society. Awareness of CSL’s interest in issues related to well-being at work was claimed by 52% of interviewees. The survey findings suggest that older and more educated employees were more aware of this interest.
The majority of employees (89%)were convinced that dealing with well-being at work is part of the job of trade unions. This view was held by 92% in the social and health care sector and by 92% in the education sector. Those interviewed also thought well-being at work should be the responsibility of other actors, with 79% of employees placing the enterprise at the top of the list followed by government policies (40%), employees themselves (5%) and last but not least staff representatives (3%).
Satisfaction with career choice
A significant proportion of the employees (58%)claimed thatthey would have made different decisions if they had the opportunity to start their professional career again.Only 39% of the employees seemed relatively or fully satisfied with their choice of career (Figure 6). The cleaning and security sectors saw the most regrets with 75%of their employees answering positively;in the Horeca and commerce sectors,it was 70% of the employees. Poor qualifications and low pay could explain such results. However, workers in the financial sector were surprisingly also strongly concerned about their career choice since more than half of its employees (64%) said they would have done things differently.
Figure 6: Different career orientations
Notes: Question: When you look at your career background and if you had the opportunity to start over again, would you make different career choices given your experiences from work?
Source:Le bien-être au travail au Luxembourg en 2010
Role of vocational training
The survey also looked at the relationship between vocational training and career advancement opportunities.
A parallelism can be seen between those sectors where workers would have opted for a different career path and those sectors where vocational training is not perceived as a tool for professional improvement. Up to 70% of employees from the cleaning and security services sectors believed there were no opportunities for advancement through vocational training;59% of employees in the Horeca and commerce sectors and 57% in the transport sector sharedthis view.
Organisation size also affected workers’ views on this issue.While 57% of employees in companies with less than 10 employees did not consider vocational training as providing an opportunity for career advancement, 62% of employees from companies with over 500 employees saw vocational training as a tool with which to boost their career.
Commentary
The survey, ‘Le bien-être au travail au Luxembourg en 2010’,was not intended to provide a scientific analysis of the issue of well-being at work but to explore the topic and to provide an overview. The survey results have been given to the Centre for Population, Poverty and Socio-Economic Policy Studies (CEPS/INSTEAD), which is expected to provide an analytical interpretation of the trends and figures with further publications on the topic expected in 2011.
The survey gives good coverage to the issue of work-related suicide– a topic under increasing public debate. According to Dr Fränz d’Onghia from the Luxembourg Mental Health League, the figures are not surprising since they confirm the statistics on suicide from international sources. One of the purposes of the questions about suicide in the survey was to determine whether people were likely to informtheir colleagues confidentially about their suicide intentionsor past attempts. Future reflections could lead to a potential role for colleagues in preventing suicide in working environments.
Contactsfor further information
CSL
David Büchel, Occupational Psychologist
Alain Kinn, Deputy Director
Luxembourg Mental Health League, Centre for Information and Prevention
Dr Fränz d’Onghia, Psychologist
TNS ILRES
Skora Messaoudi
Charles Margue
Guy Castegnaro and Ariane Claverie, CASTEGNARO, member of Ius Laboris
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (2011), Luxembourg: Workers prone to stress and burn-out at work, article.
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