New research has been published by Business in the Community (BITC), which has shown that only 45 per cent of employees feel that they can switch off from work, with the other 55 per cent stating they feel pressured to respond to calls or check emails after working hours.

The survey, which was conducted by YouGov for BITC, was carried out over 4,225 workers and found that - over the last two years - 41 per cent have had to work overtime and have found it difficult to take annual leave because of their workload. This compared to 35 per cent in 2020.

Findings also show that 54 per cent of employees said that they had too many priorities; only 29 per cent have the flexibility to alter the start and finish times of their working day and 56 per cent of workers on temporary and zero hours contracts are less likely to be able to take their annual leave, compared to 79 per cent of employees on fixed and permanent contracts.

Of the survey respondents who worked from home, 49 per cent said they felt they could switch off from work. This compared to 45 per cent of employees who travel to and from work each day.

The report makes six recommendations for employers to support employees’ wellbeing and promote a healthy work-life balance.

These include ensuring that employees can switch off outside of their agreed working hours; giving employees the right to request flexible working from their first day of work and balancing business and employee needs by providing flexibility in how, where, and when people work.

Louise Aston - Wellbeing Director at Business in the Community - said:

“It’s clear from these findings that the mental health trends for employees who are unable to switch off from work are going in the wrong direction. Employees, at the very minimum, should not be constantly working additional hours, struggling to take annual leave or feel like they have to always be available to answer emails at all hours of the day. Boundaries must be set to ensure that employers are able to switch off outside of their core working hours and it’s up to senior leaders to ensure that those boundaries are in place. Businesses need their teams to be their absolute best at work, and employees must have the flexibility to do their jobs that balance with their lives outside of the workplace. Our research found that 65 per cent of employees say that work-life balance is extremely important to them, so employers either need to offer that flexibility or else risk losing talented people to organisations that do.”