Employee Wellbeing in the Workplace and the Power of Art
If you feel that managing workplace stress has you banging your head against a brick wall, then perhaps one of the solutions could be staring you in the face.
Here at Human Everything HQ we spend a lot of our time looking at stress in one way or another. The work that we do means that stress is quite often a headline feature – whether it’s in a workplace dispute situation or we are talking about it as part of mental health first aid. We were reminded recently however by our friends at White Flamingo Art, that much like being outdoors – which we know is great for our sense of wellbeing - natural imagery has been shown to improve people’s wellness and art depicting nature has the ability to lower cortisone levels, reduces stress and relaxes people by lowering levels of anxiety.
During my previous roles in the realms of HR, my experience of stress was predominantly focussed on employee absence. It’s little wonder – according to a report from the Health and Safety Executive published in November 2020, the latest estimates from the Labour Force Survey tell us that:
The total number of cases of work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2019/20 was 828,000, a prevalence rate of 2,440 per 100,000 workers.
The rate of work-related stress depression and anxiety has increased in recent years.
The total number of working days lost due to this condition in 2019/20 was 17.9 million days. This equated to an average of 21.6 days lost per case.
In 2019/20 stress, depression or anxiety accounted for 51% of all work-related ill health cases and 55% of all working days lost due to work-related ill health.
For all of the reasons that someone can be absent from work, 51% of cases were due to stress, depression or anxiety. I find that incredible, alarming and dangerous but when I think about it, that fits in with my direct experience of workplaces and the causes of staff absences, in particular longer-term sickness absence. (Interestingly, the statistics are also showing that these increased changes do not appear to be being mainly driven by COVID-19 although I am sure that the pandemic has certainly had an aggravating effect).
When it comes to tackling stress in the workplace, there is no silver bullet. People experience stress for all sorts of reasons, and it may not be work-related issues that cause stress to build up to a point of requiring an absence from work… but in the meantime what can workplaces do outside of the obvious support and sensible work loading from managers?
White Flamingo Art have been in touch with some incredible research they have found that has been carried out on the positive effects that art can have on wellness.
“There is a huge body of work supporting the positive impact of art on wellness, so the introduction of art into the workplace can be used as an excellent tool to support your employee’s wellbeing.
Artworks that depict nature scenes are increasingly used in research and healthcare settings to reduce stress and improve health. Research demonstrates that, like real views of nature, artwork can reduce anxiety (Binnie, 2010), reduce depression (Staricoff et al., 2003), improve mood (Karnik et al., 2014), and increase relaxation (Wang et al., 2015). UC Berkley recently showed how the awe we feel when enthralled with beautiful art, can lower levels of chemicals produced by the immune system that play a role in systemic inflammation. The University of Westminster also found that a visit to an art gallery by city workers on their lunch break lowered cortisol levels and caused rapid recovery from the consequences of high stress”.
Isabel Dewhurst-Marks, founder of White Flamingo Art goes on to suggest that amenities offered in the workplace will become even more important post pandemic.
“After a long period of working from home, there is more pressure than ever before for the physical environment and workplace amenities to coax people back to the corporate office and support your employees best work.
Art initiatives are a really interesting, simple and effective way to improve your workplace. If you have an area in your workplace where you would like employees to be able to relax and recharge, why not display paintings, or photos of nature to help them. Certain natural colour hues, or colour palette can also trigger these mental and physiological responses”.
Stress will always be a part of our lives, both at home and in the workplace, and if the numbers relating to sickness absence carry on as they are, then stress needs to be something that is built into a business wellbeing strategy. This can involve making sure that your absence processes are robust and supportive, that your managers are appropriately trained, that you have stress risk assessments in place, that you have mental health first aiders on site… but don’t forget about the physical environment itself and take a look at the artwork in your workplace.
There could be more power in mother nature than you knew was possible so have a think about getting the great outdoors, inside. Your stress levels will thank you for it.
References
Binnie, J. (2010). Does Viewing Art in the Museum Reduce Anxiety and Improve Wellbeing? Museums & Social Issues, 5:2, 191-201.
Clow, A and Fredhoi. C. (2006). Normalisation of salivary cortisol levels and self-report stress by a brief lunchtime visit to an art gallery by London City workers. Journal of Holistic Healthcare, 3 (2). pp. 29-32.
HSE (2020) Work-related stress, anxiety or depression statistics in Great Britain, https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/stress.pdf
Karnik, M., Printz, B., and Finkel, J. (2014). A hospital's contemporary art collection: effects on patient mood, stress, comfort, and expectations. HERD 7, 60–77.
Staricoff et al (2011) Effect of visual art on patient anxiety and agitation in a mental health facility and implications for the business case. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 18(5):386 – 393
Wang, T., Mo, L., Vartanian, O., Cant, J. S., and Cupchik, G. (2015). An investigation of the neural substrates of mind wandering induced by viewing traditional Chinese landscape paintings. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 8:1018
This blog post was a beautiful collaboration between Human Everything and White Flamingo Art who are art curators working with organisations to find and bring art into their workplaces to activate the space, to enhance wellness, innovation and creativity.
