China workplace mental health survey report

The detection rate of moderate or above anxiety and depression among Chinese workers reaches 62.3%. Only 17.8% of companies have established a normalized employee psychological support system, and the actual effectiveness of standardized EAP (employee assistance plan) services commonly available on the market is less than 20%. The core contradiction of workplace psychological problems is no longer an individual problem of "employees with weak ability to withstand stress", but a mismatch between the highly differentiated stress sources of different industries and positions and the one-size-fits-all existing support system.

When I was doing an interview at Haidian Internet Industrial Park last week, I met Zhang Ge, a 32-year-old algorithm engineer. He had half a bottle of unfinished antihypertensive medicine in his bag, and the sleeping aid prescribed by Anding Hospital last week was stuffed in the desk drawer. He said that his stress has never been about unfinished KPIs, but "I don't know if I will be included in this year's optimization list. The monthly payment for the house I just bought is 28,000 yuan. Once the payment is stopped, I will lose everything."

Interestingly, researchers in different fields have very different opinions on this issue: Many executives from the business management school believe that the essence is "the new generation of employees lacks job adaptability". To put it bluntly, they cannot endure hardship. "We didn't see so many emotional problems when we slept in the office every day.”； Experts from the clinical psychology school came up with 3-year follow-up data and said that 70% of workplace psychological problems come from "long-term diffuse stress." The stress of the previous generation was mostly short-term high-intensity consumption that could be completed in half a month by catching up on projects. Today's stress is the 35-year-old crisis and the uncertainty of layoffs. These swords hang over the head every day, and the wear and tear on the nervous system is not of the same magnitude at all. ； Scholars of labor law studies are more direct, saying that this is essentially a derivative issue of the lack of rights to rest and employment security. 996 is a disguised overdraft, the daring to take annual leave, and the difficulty in receiving compensation for layoffs. If these fundamental problems are not solved, no matter how many mindfulness meditation classes are offered, they will be useless.

The differences in stress sources across different industries are much greater than everyone thinks. The middle-level people in the Internet industry aged 30-35 are the most anxious area, with a detection rate as high as 78%. Most of them are stuck in the embarrassing position of "can't get up or down". There are few management positions at the top, and the young people below who have just graduated are cheaper than you who can survive. ； Front-line workers aged 18-25 in the manufacturing industry are a group with a high risk of depression, with a detection rate of 67%. When we conducted a survey at a power plant in the Pearl River Delta, Xiao Li, a post-2000s worker, said, “I tighten 1,200 identical screws every day. After working for three months, I didn’t even know which part of the refrigerator I was tightening. After get off work, I lie down and watch short videos. I don’t even have the energy to fall in love.”” ； In window positions such as bank tellers and e-commerce customer service, most of the pressure comes from the overdraft of "emotional labor". A girl who has worked as an e-commerce customer service for four years said that she received a record of 87 complaint calls in one day. She sat at her desk crying for ten minutes after get off work before she dared to leave, for fear that her colleagues would think she was pretentious.

Nowadays, companies provide a lot of psychological support, which is, to say the least, self-enhancing. The standardized EAP service purchased by most companies is to give each employee two free psychological consultations a year, and they also need to make an appointment through the HR system. Who dares to go? An Internet employee in our survey put it very honestly: "If I dare to make an appointment, HR will turn around and put me on the list of 'high-risk personnel'. I will be the first to be considered for layoffs next time. Am I stupid?" ”Some companies engage in stress-relieving team building. They go to the suburbs on weekends to shout slogans and expand their business. They originally wanted to sleep in with their families, but now they are exhausted. Many employees privately call this "stress-relieving team building."

Of course, there are methods that really work. An e-commerce company in Hangzhou has made psychological support a "non-registration benefit". Employees can make appointments for psychological consultation directly through the encrypted applet of the partner organization. The company only pays the total fee and cannot see any individual appointment records. Their service utilization rate can reach 42%, which is five or six times higher than the industry average. ； There is a manufacturing factory in Shenzhen that is more practical. It has a small 10-square-meter room next to the workshop, which is equipped with sandbags, graffiti boards, and free ice drinks. When you are tired from working and are scolded by the team leader, you can just go in and stay for ten minutes. There is no need to register or tell anyone. When we went to do the research, many workers said, "Go in and smash the sandbags twice. Once you are calm and go back to work, it is not easy to make mistakes." Oh, by the way, there is also a very interesting survey data: the anxiety detection rate of working professionals who keep pets is 27% lower than that of those who do not. Many respondents said that after returning home from get off work and petting their cats for ten minutes, most of the anger they felt during the day disappeared. This is probably the most cost-effective way of psychological intervention.

I have done research on workplace psychology for 6 years, and my biggest feeling is that people don’t need any high-end psychological counseling at all. What they need is a little real space: don’t chase people in the group after get off work, you can get enough overtime pay if you work overtime, you don’t have to worry about being fired every day, and you don’t have to make up 800 reasons for asking for leave. These most basic respects are achieved and are more effective than an EAP with a million-dollar budget. We are continuing to update this survey. After all, this matter cannot be solved by one or two reports or one or two policies. Take your time. After all, more and more people are paying attention to it, which is good.