When Karen Wilson started work as a secondary school teacher almost 40 years ago she had plenty of energy for life outside of school. She loved singing in choirs and opera groups and enjoyed her evenings.
But in the last decade that all changed. “The intensity has definitely increased,” she said. “Teaching becomes your whole life because you don’t have any energy to do anything else.”
Wilson’s experience is echoed by people across professions, more than half of whom report in research for the TUC that work is getting more intense.
Wilson, 62, works in Clackmannanshire in Scotland and specialises in supporting children with additional needs. She now works part time after retiring on health grounds.
She said cuts in funding from central government had a knock-on effect on specialist teachers’ workload, since schools could not afford the additional workers needed to give them a proper lunch break. “We end up looking after the young people into the lunchtime because we don’t have enough staff to cover it.”
She added: “I’ve got a friend who by the end of term is absolutely exhausted. And she becomes physically ill by the end of each term, because she’s working such long hours. When I was in a similar post, I was working 55 to 60 hours a week, just to keep my head above water, and she’s doing the same.”
She said that the extra paperwork, pressure from parents and cuts to local authority budgets leaving teachers to take on the role of social worker, all made the job more intense.
“There just aren’t enough social workers to help so we end up doing things to help young people which strictly speaking is a social worker’s job, like going out and visiting the home, but if we don’t do it then who does?”
Amy Ash, 31, a postal worker in south-west London, said her job was changing fast. “I’ve only been there six years and the job has changed dramatically, even in that short stretch of time.”
She said at the end of a working week she was “absolutely physically knackered” because postal rounds had increased in size, with more addresses added. Parcels also make up a bigger chunk of the workload, making postbags heavier while letter-writing continues to decline.
“I wear a Fitbit and it monitors how many steps I’ve taken and usually, during my delivery, I’ve done between eight and 12 miles of walking.
“By the end of the week, your shoulders, your knees, your back, it’s all hurting, even your feet. And obviously, we carry a heavy bag as well.”
Ash said the introduction of handheld digital devices to sign for parcels added to their stress, because of fears the data would be used to monitor efficiency.
“Before we used to go about our delivery, talking to customers. Just going about it at normal speed. Now we’re constantly worried about what speed we’re going, is it quick enough?”
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of our 130,000 people and have an extensive range of programmes and tools in place to support colleagues.
“All routes are carefully planned to ensure that the work can be delivered in the time allowed for and are reviewed regularly to facilitate fair, manageable and balanced walks. Our current postal digital assistants (PDAs) were launched jointly with the CWU in 2018.
“They are designed to let customers know where their items are while in transit, what their delivery preference is and the predicted time of delivery. They are not designed to tell people to walk more quickly or monitor efficiency but, as per the agreement with the CWU, to facilitate fair, manageable and balanced walks.”
