'Sunday night blues' heightened for first day back of New Year

Nearly two-thirds of UK workers go to bed on Sunday night “dreading” going back to work with this feeling being heightened on the first day back after the New Year.

Investors in People found that 65 per cent of employees go to bed on Sunday, feeling far from enthusiastic that they have to go to work the next day.

Under a quarter (24 per cent) are unhappy in their job at the start of 2020 and the same amount are actively seeking a new job. Also, 32 per cent are also considering looking for a new job.

Employees say their top three reasons for looking for a new job is earning more money (30 per cent), not feeling valued (23 per cent) and wanting a better work/life balance (22 per cent).

A “thank you” from your boss has been a consistent way over the past four years to keep employees in a job at 14 per cent.

Over three-quarters (77 per cent) feel stress at work, and 64 per cent claimed their sleep patterns were being affected.

It was also found that 24 per cent of people who resigned did so to obtain a better work-life balance and 19 per cent did so to receive a pay rise. However, 20 per cent of those who stayed on after threatening to resign found that the company did not adhere to the promises they made.

Paul Devoy, CEO at Investors in People, said:

At Investors in People we ask questions about work all day. To ourselves, to our colleagues and to our clients. Because the expert on work is everyone who works.

6 years into our job exodus research, we’re still hearing that people want to be told ‘thank you’ and 1 in 4 people are looking for a new job because they don’t feel valued.

Thank you’, something so simple, so consistently important and potentially the best retention tool we’ve got.

Doing your best work, knowing you’re in a place where you can grow. To get to the end of the day and feel like you’ve achieved something that is what it means when we invest in people.

Since 2014, Investors in People have asked over 12,000 employees to gather these results.

 

 

 

 

Darius is the editor of HRreview. He has previously worked as a finance reporter for the Daily Express. He studied his journalism masters at Press Association Training and graduated from the University of York with a degree in History.