Job anxiety, work-related psychological illness and workplace performance

This paper uses matched employee-employer data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) to examine the relationship between employee psychological health and workplace performance in 2004 and 2011. Using two measures of work-related psychological health – namely employee-reported job anxiety and manager-reported workforce stress, depression and anxiety – we find a positive relationship between psychological ill-health and absence, but not quits. The association between psychological ill-health and labour productivity is less clear, with estimates sensitive to sector, time period and the measure of psychological health. The 2004-2011 panel is further used to explore the extent to which change in psychological health is related to change in performance.