November 2007 – Health in the workplace, a source of anxiety

I worry a lot about my health. In fact I sometimes think that the anxiety generated by health fears has more potential to make me unwell than anything else that I do in life.

Just now I have a report open on my desk. It contains the results of a medical examination undertaken by a company called iHealth, based in Surrey, that delivers health screening for senior executives.

The company wanted to show me just how thorough such executive screening has become so I decided the best way to find out was to put myself through the process. That’s no small step as the nurse explained as she stabbed the needle in to my arm in order to draw some blood.

“The men are the worst,” she said. “We see these men who have all kinds of responsibilities in their companies but who are afraid to come and have a medical. It seems that the more senior they are, the more reluctant they can be to come here.”

But taking the plunge is important. “Two of the men who came here came to us just in time. They needed immediate heart by-pass surgery yet neither had any idea they were at risk.”

The intervention saved their lives. It also saved their employers the considerable investment they had made in two highly expensive and correspondingly high billing employees.

They, like me, would probably have carried on regardless but for the urging of their partners or bosses. Perhaps they needed the medical in order to qualify for health insurance. I had been thinking about a check-up ever since turning 50 earlier in the year but didn’t see the need for anything more than a quick visit to my GP for a blood pressure and cholesterol test.

I can’t help this, but I’m one of those people who cannot read a list of medical symptoms without thinking they all apply to me. A medical examination, therefore, is a depressing business. Even a clean bill of health does nothing to put me at ease. I simply assume there has been a mistake.

Fortunately this one gave me plenty to worry about, delivering detailed readings and scores for all kinds of ailments with the potential to ruin or end my life.

Sadly they are pointing to a miserable Christmas on water and lettuce leaves supplemented by plenty of exercise. But there is one bright spot. To be entirely free from anxiety is not such a good thing, according to a forthcoming book, Just Enough Anxiety, the Hidden Driver of Business Success.

Its author, Robert Rosen, Chairman and Chief Executive of Healthy Companies International, argues that anxiety is like a rubber band: pulled too hard it breaks, but it needs to be stretched if it’s going to do its job. Too little anxiety, he says, leads to complacency, boredom and stagnation.

But what constitutes “just enough?” Between writing this column and its publication I must make a presentation before an audience – always a source of anxiety. At one time it would have induced blind panic but today it’s not much more than a mild attack of butterflies and a raised heartbeat that can be settled by a few deep breaths and a glass of water.

Public speaking does not come naturally to most people but it is part of the modern demands of business. It would be easier, I suppose, to decline every invitation. To do so, says Mr Rosen, would be to settle only for the kind of work I find comfortable. Such comfort, he says, has everything to do with a natural adversity to change.

This, he argues, is a bad thing if we are to adapt our careers to the kind of changes that are sweeping through business just now. Too much anxiety, on the other hand, is destructive, undermining both performance and health.

I was dipping in to an advance copy of his book at the weekend before settling down to watch the first of a new TV series, Cranford, an adaptation of three of the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell, set in the 1840s when the changes wrought buy the Industrial Revolution must have been palpable.

Gaskell had a keen eye for the minutiae of change, including shifting attitudes to medicine, death and work. A young girl interviewed by the lady of the manor for a servant’s job is proud to declare her reading and writing skills until she is told by the prospective employer that her skills make her unsuitable for the job.

Such attitudes, born of elitism, might seem dated today but many workplaces still operate a kind of class system, often determined by qualifications and experience. I was reading last week of a book reviewer who is highly rated within the internet community but who would still struggle to find work in the national media that, like many sectors, clings to outdated concepts of professionalism.

No such prejudice applies to business start-ups but too many people who have opted to join employers are afraid to strike out on their own. The comfort of the job is preferable to life on the outside. But, as Mr Rosen points out, the job may offer individuals less control over their careers. There are few things more frustrating than feeling undervalued and the irony is that such feelings are in themselves a significant cause of stress.

A lack of control, combined with a sense that your work is under-rewarded, are recognised by the Health and Safety Executive, a potential health issues. But, as Simon Pickvance, a senior advisor at Sheffield Occupational Health Advisory Service, writing in the September edition of Occupational Health at Work, notes, reports of stress among employees are often associated with frustration and anger at perceived unfairness or uncaring management.

Employers, he says, should try to exercise fairness in dealing with staff and provide roles and structures that “affirm interdependence of staff rather than competition.”
His article reminds us that stress can run throughout a workforce at every level.

We all need to take care of ourselves. We need to keep fit to continue making a useful contribution in society through our work. Yet the very work that we do can undermine that contribution. It is the Catch-22 of the workplace. The higher we climb in our careers, the more responsibilities that are placed on our shoulders, the less time we may find for looking after our health.

Yet heart disease is the leading cause of death among men and women every year and our work-styles should be considered as potential factors just as much as other aspects of our lifestyle.

I learned a lot from my medical examination – perhaps a little bit too much – but it was comforting to find that most of my health fears covering a whole array of things – loss of memory, impending deafness, prostate cancer, heart attacks – were without foundation. Reading the consultant’s report, his conclusion was that some “dietary modification is needed.”

In other words I need to lose a little bit of weight.

*www.ihealthltd.com

** Just Enough Anxiety, the Hidden Driver of Business Success, by Robert H Rosen, is published by Porfolio in March, price $24.95.

See also: Workplace health