Half of British teens prefer happiness over pay in jobs, new study shows
A poll of 500 13 to 18 year olds found 46 per cent already know they want their career to align with their values.
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While nearly eight in 10 (77 per cent) are already considering how important mental health support is in the workplace, as 74 per cent believe it will make employees happier and want to stay at their jobs, and 36 per cent say no colleagues will ever feel 'left out'.
On the other hand, only eight per cent are bothered about company-wide events.
And they would be more likely to take a job with free private healthcare (17 per cent) than a company car scheme (seven per cent).
Dr. Amy Pressland, a spokesperson from Benenden Health, which commissioned the research as part of its 'Future of Work' report, said: 'This research demonstrates a distinct step-change for the next generation of workers and what's important to them.
'Employers need to urgently consider what this means for how they design workplaces, roles and employee benefits.
"The company car and the Christmas party may become de-prioritised as Generation Alpha (born between 2010 and 2024) join the workforce.
"Front and centre for Gen Alpha is health - they are the generation most concerned with mental health, supporting neurodiversity, and will prioritise employers who align with their concerns and values.'
The study went on to poll the teen's parents which found 54 per cent are worried about their children entering the workplace.
Their key reasons being the skills taught at school being different to what's needed in a professional environment (41 per cent), and fears that the workplace could be toxic (39 per cent).
While 27 per cent are afraid their young adults won't like the culture.
Britain's biggest train 'icks' are revealed in new study
However, 85 per cent believe the attitudes to working have changed since they started their first job.
With 39 per cent recognising the uptick in mental health support and 53 per cent noticing more flexible working patterns.
And 35 per cent, encouragingly, think it has become more supportive in recent years.
In a separate poll of 500 HR professionals, also conducted by OnePoll for the healthcare provider, it was revealed 59 per cent have seen younger generations wanting different benefits to their predecessors.
These perks include more flexible hours, remote working and increased mental health support.
As well as gym memberships, private healthcare and pet-friendly offices.
Dr. Amy Pressland from Benenden Health added: 'With Generation Alpha mere years away from entering the workforce en masse, now is the time for employers, CEOs, IT and HR directors to consider how they must adapt their workplaces to attract the most diverse and digitally-savvy generation to date.'
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Times
an hour ago
- Times
Behind closed doors: what I saw as a nurse on a psychiatric ward
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Jackson — now 41, a therapist in private practice and mental health mentor, in London — had worked in social care and in prisons for five years when she began training as a psychiatric nurse on NHS acute mental health wards and centres in the south of England 'within the last ten years', she says, vague to preserve confidentiality. She was stunned by the 'dissociation' of staff. She wanted to believe the doctors knew best, but instinctively felt something was 'very wrong'. Her university tutor agreed there was 'bad practice', but not enough for anyone to do anything. 'There are pockets of good care,' he told her, 'but there is a lot of this.' She thought: 'Can't we complain?' She's taken aside, told not to ask so many questions. 'I want people to see what's happening behind these closed doors,' she says now, so they can 'protect themselves and their loved ones, if they are involved in mental health services'. So they know what questions to ask. Too often, 'We assume the answers we are being given are the correct ones.' She says: 'You need to be curious. When it comes to mental health, the expert on us is us.' This affects us all. It's alarmingly easy for anyone to be locked away. 'There wasn't consistency — of diagnosis, of sectioning,' Jackson says. 'It was so bizarre to see this incredibly important decision-making be so haphazard.' She witnesses a middle-class student brought into A&E. A spiteful-sounding nurse judges her 'bipolar' and calls a psychiatrist who declares, 'She's totally psychotic.' Jackson says: 'Hasn't she just smoked a load of spice?' A clinician can argue that drug-taking has 'activated' an underlying illness. People aren't believed. The shrink says: 'She thinks she's a famous singer.' Jackson looks up the girl on her phone — she's a folk singer. Only her family turning up, refusing antipsychotics — and the lack of an available bed — avoid her being admitted to an acute psychiatric ward. • Read more expert advice on healthy living, fitness and wellbeing Once someone's in the system, labelled with, for example, schizophrenia, PD (often 'weaponised') or delusional disorder, anything they say can be paranoia. Racism features, a lot. An African woman insists she's been sectioned because her kids want her house. Crazy. But it turns out she's sane enough to get a diplomat from her country of origin to order her release. Another inpatient, in his fifties, characterised as sharp, witty — 'I understand you, I just don't agree with you,' he tells a patronising nurse — appears to have autism. His family's request for an assessment is refused as it's 'too late'. Jackson is told 'they don't want the stigma of mental illness''. She saw little understanding of neurodiversity, and cites research that finds misdiagnosis is common. Yet, if a doctor says, ''Oh no, it's not that,' how often do we push back?' Why couldn't his family get him out? 'The legalities around sectioning would mean that it was very difficult.' On a section, you're deemed unsafe to be outside. 'You'd have to go through a tribunal. Some people did really fight to get their family members out, but a lot of people didn't.' ('How do I argue with a doctor who says my relative is unwell?') Characters are composites to protect identities, but it all happened, 'all these things were said to me,' Jackson says. She carried around a tatty notebook, 'just writing everything down, because I could not believe what was happening'. Patients' treatment by staff is frequently callous. 'Some people have good experiences,' Jackson stresses — but Fragile Minds focuses on the worst. The mentally unwell are often traumatised, yet there's no attempt to understand the context for their behaviour. When people go into services, 'they really are hopeful for compassion. It's devastating when they don't get it,' she says. 'It makes me so angry. It can really destroy us.' Most are 'boxed into a diagnosis' and medicated, often oversedated. Jackson and another decent nurse question a young man being given four daily doses of lorazepam — a benzodiazepine — as he can barely stand. They're ignored until he nearly drowns shaving — collapsing unconscious face-down in his sink. 'These medications do help a lot of people,' Jackson says. But many have severe side-effects, and also they're used 'punitively'. She saw medication used 'as a restraint on wards, to calm people down, to shut them up, put them to sleep. It's used by force, it's used through coercion — very different to someone choosing, and saying, 'This helps me.'' • Our new health crisis — we're diagnosing too much, too early One nurse says: 'I'm all about a good injection.' 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Not everyone can recover, surely? 'I agree with that,' she says. So when does giving the benefit of the doubt put others at risk? Jackson stresses she's not denying that some people are very disturbed and need monitoring. 'And we can wonder about what happened to them.' Distinguishing between the dangerous and the harmless, 'figuring out what the dangers are and the risks', she believes, requires 'exploration and curiosity and needing to look at the context and seeing everyone as individuals'. Not, as she saw, 'a blanket approach'. She says: 'The 'how do we get it right' question is something I can't answer.' Having left the profession shortly after qualifying, she still feels some shame that she was 'too crushed' to stay within it. But she remains 'honoured' to help people with their mental health. ('I am not a 'silent therapist',' she promises, on her website, 'and will bring warm, gentle inquisitive exploration to our sessions.') 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Times
an hour ago
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The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
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