Scott Schieman is a professor of sociology and Canada Research Chair at the University of Toronto.
Paul Glavin is an associate professor of sociology at McMaster University.
How often do you find your job stressful? Would you say always, often, sometimes, almost never or never?
We asked this question to 5,000 American workers through the research company YouGov and replicated the study with 2,500 Canadian workers with the help of the Angus Reid Group. Our studio, MESSI: Measurement of work sentiment and social inequalityis designed to be representative of the working populations of the United States and Canada.
Given the current narrative about how stressed we all are these days and the prevalence of exhaustion, we hypothesized that most people would report their work as “often” or “always” stressful. But we were wrong.
In the United States, 32 percent of workers say they personally find their job stressful often or always. Instead, most workers report feeling stressed at work sometimes or less.
But the biggest surprise in our data involves a notable misperception: 70 percent of American workers think that most other American workers “often” or “always” feel stressed at work.
What about Canada? The misperception reflects our findings in the United States: while 39 percent of Canadians say they “often” or “always” experience their own work as stressful, 72 percent think most other Canadian workers They experience a high level of stress at work.
That’s a gap of 38 points among Americans and 33 points among Canadians.
In our Canadian survey, there is another novel twist. We added a more local reference point by also asking what people’s perceptions are of the level of stress experienced by most of their own coworkers. As the figure above shows, the perception error associated with “most coworkers” falls between personal experience and the level of perceived stress experienced by “most Canadians.”
These findings challenge the narrative that work is overwhelmingly stressful for most people. Some critics may argue that the word “stressful” can mean different things to different people, and our qualitative data confirms wide variations. Sources of work stress can vary from monotony to favoritism to email overload to endless meetings to feel trapped in your work at the complex challenges of remote work to forms of ambiguous discrimination or even ageism.
Some critics will distort perceptual pretzels to protect the narrative. But the evidence is compelling and deserves space in the conversation about what people really think and feel about work.
Perhaps a more important and philosophical question is: shouldn’t we expect to find work stressful at least some of the time? We all experience some pressures or demands at work that are stressful. Most of us accept that reality. In fact, it can make a job more interesting and challenging. But when the pressure is chronic, it can threaten health. Therefore, the fact that one-third of American workers and a slightly larger share of Canadians find their jobs “often” or “always” stressful is a concern that should be taken seriously.
But the central takeaway from our data is not the overall prevalence of personal stress. It is the substantial gap between personal stress levels and the perceived stress levels of others. And that perception problem exists despite all the noise that the word “stressful” contains.
When stress is too severe, we recognize that it is a problem. Justly. But when it comes to work and the economy, the perceived prevalence of “evil” is wildly misaligned—far overestimated—beyond what the data shows is reality. This in itself can cause unnecessary additional anxiety. Shouldn’t we worry about that too?
Too many people walk around today thinking that things “out there” are much worse than they really are. And that’s not good for anyone.
It’s time for a subjective realignment about work and a more optimistic conversation about what it can do for us. Fixing these types of perception failures is a necessary first step.
This column is part of Globe Careers’ Leadership Lab series, where executives and experts share their insights and advice on the world of work. Find all Leadership Lab stories at tgam.ca/leadershiplab and guidelines on how to contribute to the column here.
