Is Digital Noise the hidden hit on employee wellbeing?

Whether it’s employee productivity while working from home, the loneliness of remote workers, or the current Hokey Cokey of hybrid working (or Hokey Pokey for those in the US), workplace research has been making headline news since COVID turned the world upside down. 

But despite the flood of data, one headline that flew under the radar was about workplace wellbeing. Research from CIPD found that 2023 marked the year with the highest number of sick days taken by employees - yes, even more than during the height of the pandemic. It’s surprising, right?  In 2023, the average UK employee took 7.8 days of sick leave during the past compared to 5.8 days a year pre-pandemic.  The issue appears to be transatlantic, with 17% of US adults reporting 6 or more sick days in the last year, compared to 11% in in 2020. 

Now, employee wellbeing is a complex equation that encompasses the physical, mental, and emotional health of employees, but employees are also raising more than one warning sign.  

In the US, about 76% of employees reported experiencing at least one mental health symptom in 2023, with 84% attributing this to workplace conditions. Gallup also found that 44% of employees experience significant daily stress at work, a record high since 2001. 

Of course wellbeing affects an employee’s ability to work productively and to thrive, but it’s also good for business with McKinsey finding that businesses prioritizing employee wellbeing outperform those that do not. We must try to understand what is contributing to this difference and how employers can help.  

Your instinct might be to blame long COVID but the reality is we’re three years past the days of isolation, many are back in the office - at least for a couple of days a week but the data continues to trend downwards in every area. 

Here’s where things get interesting. Research from Harvard Business Review in 2021 shows increased working flexibility reduces the likelihood of employees taking sick days. I mean, I’ve certainly had my fair share of WFS (working from sofa) just to avoid rescheduling meetings due to a mild cold (don’t tell my manager!). 

So, what’s causing this employee wellbeing slump even with the increased flexibility? 

Our latest research at Unily suggests something unexpected: digital noise. 

We found that 50% of workers get distracted at least once every half hour, and nearly a third get distracted every 15 minutes. Roger Hall spoke to CNBC and crunched the numbers on what this does to employee concentration:

Obviously, this kills productivity, and probably drags down work quality (arguably the same thing). But let’s think about the more measurable impact: the rising number of sick days, which directly hits an organization’s bottom line. Is it too much of a stretch to say digital noise is contributing to the increase in workplace absences? We know from our research 1 in 10 employees would go as far as to quit their job from excessive digital noise, the other 9 in 10 must be weathering the storm but feeling the negative impact.

We also know that 59% of survey respondents said digital noise was contributing to their workplace stress, rising to 71% of managers. This is particularly concerning, as managers are crucial to driving engagement within their teams. If they're struggling, it's likely to exacerbate wellbeing issues across the board.

Now, you could argue that this finding, coupled with the “always-on” culture that comes with digitalization, is creating a new kind of pressure. It’s like we’re hyperaware and ultra-cautious about physical illnesses due to COVID, but we’ve unknowingly built a wall of digital noise that’s taking a toll on mental health and workplace wellbeing.

We’ve added flexibility - sure, you can work from anywhere now - but we’ve subtracted something just as important: a healthy balance that considers both productivity and wellbeing. It’s a false economy where the trade-off is not immediately obvious but is slowly eroding organizational health from within.

So, what’s the solution? I won’t pretend it’s simple, and no one’s in a rush to go back to pre-COVID ways of working (least of all me, as I sit here writing this blog in a cozy coffee shop, sipping my pumpkin spiced latte). But with more than 10 years of experience in consulting on employee experience and internal communications, I do believe that organizations can strike a balance with more intentional design in the digital workplace.

What can we be doing better?

Over the past few years, we saw organizations rapidly digitalize to meet the new demands of work, but very few have taken the time to sit back and re-evaluate their strategy with fresh eyes.

In working with some of the world’s most iconic brands like EY and CVS Health, I’ve noticed that the smartest players have already built a new blueprint for digital employee experience. They’re using an EX Platform to improve employee wellbeing through three areas:

1. Simplifying the IT Landscape - Giving employees faster access to the tools and systems they need, while cutting down on the constant barrage of irrelevant notifications from across their digital estate.
2. Providing strategically targeted communication – The likes of Wipro have reduced all company email traffic by 80% through implementing a strategically designed comms portal that only shows comms relevant to the employee at the time they’re able to digest it.
3. Let the employee choose through personalization – No matter how much time you in invest in understanding your employees you’ll never be able to understand exactly what works for them. With the likes of Apple empowering iPhone users to set their communication preferences and set notification summaries, companies like American Airlines are encouraging employees to choose their preferred channel for communications and what notifications they wish to receive.

These efforts create a digital ecosystem where productivity and wellbeing can co-exist, rather than compete. Organizations that manage to quiet the digital noise will be the ones that thrive in this new era of work—without sacrificing their employees’ health in the process.