Vineeta Rao
Auckland, February 25, 2025
If you are having a hard time with your mental health because you are constantly worrying about your bills and overall cost of living, a survey by NIB and the Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) reveals that you are not alone.
The 2024 Workplace Wellbeing Survey found that while a majority of employees are satisfied at work, the deteriorating economic environment and cost of living crisis in the country are adversely impacting their mental health and productivity.
The biennial survey gathered responses from over 1200 Kiwis, across different organisations.
For scale, The Research Association of New Zealand recommends a minimum sample size of 500 for political polling. The study highlights the significant impact of the economic environment on employee well-being and offers insights into how businesses can support their teams.
One Plus One Communications Group Director Liz Holt said, “The results of the first Workplace Wellbeing Survey, powered by the EMA and NIB were published in 2021 for better understanding of the health and well-being challenges facing the local workforce. Since then, NIB has partnered with the EMA to survey New Zealanders in 2022 and 2024, gaining great insights into employee expectations and employer investment in health and well-being.”
Anxiety and Stress
One of the key findings of the survey is that 75% are satisfied at work and 61% believe their workplace proactively manages their well-being. This is a positive trend compared to two years ago when only 53% felt their well-being was being managed. That said, employees are increasingly worried about their jobs and financial security, leading to uncertainty about the future. This anxiety is not only affecting their ability to perform their jobs but also impacting their overall health and well-being.
EMA Head of Advocacy and Strategy Alan McDonald said that while the outlook for the economy is favourable and the business confidence surveys are positive, it is not the ground reality today.
“All of those things are trending in the right direction, but there is always a bit of a lag in translation when it comes to business and the wider community,” he said.
Stability vs Brain Drain
An increasing number of employees are looking to stay in their jobs for the next year, amid increasing unemployment and tight market conditions. Many are sticking it out despite less than favourable work conditions. This is partly due to their concerns about their ability to find a new job if required. Many people searching for work reported coming up against large numbers of other applicants when applying for roles.
BNZ Chief Economist Mike Jones said in a media statement that the difficult labour market conditions were likely to extend into 2026.
“We think the unemployment rate has further to climb and might peak at just under 5.5% around the middle of the year,” he said.
Many New Zealanders have moved to Australia also jumped the ditch in search of better prospects. Recently, Engineering New Zealand Chief Executive Dr Richard Templar claimed that hundreds of engineers were leaving the country.
“The shutdown of education rebuilds, hospital builds and upgrades, the slow down on roading, and the changes in the Three Waters space have meant that New Zealand engineers and New Zealand constructors, the people who build the roads, waters network and buildings, have all had to look for work elsewhere and that has seen people heading overseas or contracting to work overseas and significant numbers,” he said.
Mr McDonald corroborated this claim and provided more specifics.
“To build infrastructure, you need not just the people on the ground shifting the dirt and laying the asphalt, who are leaving in large numbers. You also need the people at the other end of the scale – the contract lawyers, the funding and financing people, the engineers, the geo-tech people. All of them are leaving in large numbers. And you know, they are in demand around the world. A fair chunk of them are in that sort of 24 to 35 age group and are the people who have just come out of university or they’ve been in the workforce for a couple of years. They are starting to hit their peak in terms of productivity and ability and all of those things. And so it is a real concern that we’re losing them,” he said.
Action Plan for Employers
Employees look for employers to support them in their career development, value regular performance feedback, and provide opportunities to learn. Leadership, coaching, and well-being initiatives are also highlighted as crucial factors in supporting employee well-being.
“Now it is not just about how much money you are getting, it is about people wanting to work in places because of the values of the organisation. You are seeing more businesses putting in professional development programmes. So while things are tight and you cannot do wage increases or as big an increase as somebody might like, you can offer a professional development programme within the workplace to retain people, upskill them and get more productivity out of your business,” he said.
Employees are also seeking well-being initiatives and strong leadership from their employers. Benefits like health insurance, income protection insurance and Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP) (counselling) are now routinely offered as incentives to pay packages.
NIB Chief Executive Rob Hennin said that there are long-term benefits of investing in employee health: “Offering private health insurance is not just about meeting employee expectations; it is about proactively fostering a healthier, more productive workforce. Employers who invest in their employees’ health have reported benefits such as reduced absenteeism and higher job satisfaction.”
But for all that, there is still a significant number of employees who feel that their workplace does not manage those struggling in leadership positions well.
Mental health Specialist Dr Dougal Sutherland said: “Often, stressors in a workplace cannot be controlled by individual staff. So, providing them with counselling is sort of like sending an ambulance to the bottom of the cliff. I think workplaces can look at how they structure the work that they do so that people don’t get burnt out in the first place.”
“There is something that we are not doing right. We work some of the longest hours in the OECD but we are also one of the least productive countries in the world. Therefore, simply getting people to work harder is not kind of going to be the solution. Organisations need to work smarter and protect people’s mental well-being. It will help them be more productive and work better,” he added.
Flexible Hours
About 83% of employees said that flexible work hours were an important criterion when selecting a new role. However, one in every five employees said that their organisation’s policy around flexible work hours was unclear to them. Flexible work hours see employees choose their start and finish time while hybrid work arrangements support employees working from home for a couple of days a week.
Mr McDonald said, “It is about recognising that employees have interests and commitments outside of work and enabling them to accommodate them.”
Most workplaces saw the introduction of flexible work hours during the pandemic. And so far, it seems to have worked well for New Zealand. About 76% of those surveyed said that hybrid and flexible working arrangements were important when considering changing jobs and more than 60% said they were satisfied with the approach their employer had towards flexible work hours as well as hybrid working.
Many also added that it is important that all policies around flexible and/or hybrid working arrangements be clearly outlined and applied fairly and evenly across the organisation.
Many organisations, notably in the public sector, are requiring employees to come back to the office, citing a decline in productivity as a reason.
Dr Sutherland said that this decision seemed almost knee-jerk in its execution because there is no real evidence to support this claim.
“One of the risks of working at home is actually that people overwork because there are no boundaries to stop and start their working day. So sending them back to the office may reduce their productivity but also create some bad interrelationships between employers and employees, as employees see that they are having a benefit taken away from them.”
Overall, the 2024 Workplace Wellbeing Survey highlights the importance of proactively managing employee well-being in the face of economic challenges.
Employers who prioritise mental health, resilience, and career development, businesses can create a supportive and productive work environment that benefits both employees and the organisation.
Survey results are at https://well-being.ema.co.nz/
Vineeta Rao is an Indian Newslink Reporter based in Auckland.
