Mental health can be improved by quitting a bad job

At the start of the year I left my job because of a bad work situation. My mental health was suffering and I found I had little confidence, energy or desire to find another job. Fortunately, I had a good amount of savings and when my despair became to much I made the decision to quit my job.

Some interesting new research from Australian has revealed that I am not alone in feeling that it was better to be without a job than remain employed in a bad job. The longitudinal study of 7000 people found that a badly paid, poorly supported, or insecure job, can be more harmful for your mental health than being unemployed.

The research was undertaken by the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University (ANU). It explored how the 'psychosocial quality' of a job impacts on mental health outcomes by looking at aspects such as feeling valued, needing some control, demands and complexity, job insecurity, lack of support and unfair pay. It also compared how a poor quality job compares with the effects of unemployment on a person's mental health.

The study participants completed a mental health inventory and were asked about their employment status. They were then given a mental health score based on a description of their levels of anxiety, depression, happiness and feelings of calm in the four weeks preceding the survey.

The results showed that employed people had an average score of 75.1 and, not surprisingly, that those who moved from unemployment to a good job showed an increase in their score of 3.3 points. But, the analysis also revealed that the mental health of workers was dependent on the psychosocial quality of the job. With those in the poorest quality jobs showing a decline of 5.6 points below the average score, much lower than those who remained unemployed who only a drop of one point.

This was an important finding for the research team as it showed that moving from unemployment to a poor quality job can be more detrimental to mental health than remaining unemployed. The researchers say this is different to previous studies and goes against the commonly held belief that any job is better than no job.

The findings ring very true to my own experience. While I really liked my job and many of the people I worked with, the work I did was unsupported by senior management and the workplace was toxic.

I was with the organisation for four years and in that time the area I worked in underwent five external reviews and none of the suggested improvements, some of which seemed good, were fully implemented.

Improvements that talked about changes to senior management were particularly ignored and instead any blame seemed to be redirected to the over-worked middle management layer. And, not once did they genuinely ask staff for ideas on improvements.

The projects we did work on were usually shelved about half way through. I particularly dreaded hearing the phrase, “quick wins.” We seemed to be aimlessly going around and around in circles.

Most of the staff were beaten down and only stayed in their jobs for convenience or because they felt de-skilled and thus had no confidence to move on.

I’m pretty loyal and have always been a really hard worker. I’ve often worked through lunch and after hours to ensure I did the best job I could, but I found myself looking for ways to spend as little time as possible at work. I also found I was spending a lot of time with colleagues debriefing and complaining that nothing ever changed. All these things told me it was time to leave.

Now I am living on my savings and trying to start a new career in writing. I have very little spare cash but I haven’t been healthier in years. For me, the critical thing was taking some control back.

According to the International Labor Organization unemployment levels are at record highs in many countries, due to the global financial crisis. A lot of developed countries are also feeling the pinch of an aging population and there is a lot of talk about keeping people in the work force longer. Consequently, there are a huge amounts of resources being devoted to job creation and unemployment programs.

I hope, that this new research will help improve workplaces, social policy and the design of welfare programs by placing an increased emphasis on creating a positive work environment.

Not every job can be fabulous but every workplace can!

The ANU research has been published in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Journal.