In 2021, almost a third of full-time employees in Europe said that they feel burned out very often or always. That means that 28% of full-time employees were suffering of chronic stress at work and couldn’t handle it. People living a burn out are exhausted physically, mentally. It can affect people’s social relationships. Burn out also affects the work organisation, increase in absenteeism, cost increase, and decrease in productivity and creativity.
Nevertheless, in some countries, the government already focus more on the well-being of their people than on the economy. In fact, happy and healthy people are more productive. For example, New Zealand has a well-being budget which uses human health safety and flourishing to assess the success of its policies while Finland have adopted a health in all-policies approach, growing the well-being of their people. Another example is the government of Iceland who implemented, between 2015 and 2019, a trial which involved 1 percent of the nation’s working population who started to work 35 hours a week instead of 40 hours, without a reduction pay.
If these countries can prioritize the well-being of their people, are other countries not able to do the same? New Zealand, Finland and Iceland are among the best economic system with the happiest people in the world.
Why not, following their path?