Nearly nine out of every 10 formal sector employees are said to be affected A Partner at Niche Human Capital Advisory Rebecca Gichuki /JACKTONE LAWI Money pressure, wrong job placement and excessive workloads are driving Kenya's formal workforce into high stress levels, with a new study showing that 87 per cent report experiencing stress.
This translates to nearly nine out of every 10 formal sector employees. The findings by consultancy firm Niche Human Capital Advisory, paint a picture of workplaces where organisational inefficiencies and economic hardship are weighing on productivity, raising costs for employers through lower employee performance, absenteeism and staff turnover.
A partner at the consultancy, Rebecca Gichuki said that many organisations still treat employee wellness as an occasional activity instead of embedding it into how they recruit, manage and retain staff. She points out financial stress as the leading contributor to employee anxiety, reflecting the difficult operating environment facing both businesses and workers.
"We know our economy is quite difficult as of now. Companies are to some degree struggling to keep up with demand. You also don't want to get to a place as a business where you're overpaying your employees more than you're producing. There is a very tricky balance that a lot of businesses are trying to make," said Gichuki Beyond financial pressures, the research points to poor organisational design as another major source of stress.
Employees working in roles that do not match their qualifications or skills, unclear job descriptions, ineffective managers and poor communication all contribute to higher stress levels. "We want to make sure we're putting the right people in the right roles. Are you an accountant in an admin role?
Are you an admin in an accounting role? Are you a designer in an accounting role? Those are the things we need to look at, and that speaks to talent optimization," Gichuki said. The consultancy also found that employees are increasingly becoming overwhelmed by workloads that exceed available staffing levels, forcing many workers to perform the duties of multiple employees.