The Sunday scaries: addressing pre-work anxiety

A recent survey by Currys revealed that over half of Brits suffer from pre-work anxiety, admitting to experiencing a phenomenon called the “Sunday Scaries”. The study features a list of 12 pre-work anxieties that workers go through.

Top of the list of scaries was the fear that the “boss wants to talk”, with 35% selecting this as one of their work-related anxieties. “Receiving a no-context message from the boss asking for a ‘chat’ seems to be a very common worry among UK employees,” said the study. 24% of those surveyed detailed actually “going to the office” as one of their biggest triggers.

Businesses will not want their employees to experience the “Sunday scaries”. It is a recipe for an unhappy and unproductive workforce. Employers can, however, take-away some practical ideas from the list compiled by Currys. Look at the ‘first’ day of the week for most of your employees and consider offering a ‘first day of the week incentive’. Perhaps it could be having breakfast delivered to the office, a more relaxed start-time or an optional group activity. Make sure that those who work part-time and don’t work on your ‘first’ day are not left out – you should consider offering something else as an incentive on their ‘first’ day.

Give detailed consideration to hybrid working patterns for those for whom this is possible.

Given the number of employees who were made anxious by no-context messages asking for a ‘chat’, consider training managers to be more direct and detailed in their written communications. Providing a little context to a meeting request could help to ease the anxieties of your workforce.