For many it’s the most wonderful time of the year, but for warehouse workers across the UK, the winter and festive season brings additional stress according to a study from StoreFeeder, particularly in the retail and ecommerce sector.
The warehouse order and despatch management software company recently launched The Warehouse Workers Mental Health Report 2025, finding that just over 40% of workers have seen their mental health suffer as a result of their work. As part of the study, it also found that from November onwards stress levels increase further, largely in the retail and ecommerce sector, as workers face heightened stress levels from Black Friday right through to the January sales.
In total, 45% of warehouse workers feel increased stress over the ‘Cyber Weekend’, which often extends over a two-week period for many online retailers, while that figure is the same as Christmas shopping peaks in the month of December.
It’s at the entry level where workers feel it most, those on the ground, who are picking, packing and despatching orders. In fact, the Christmas period drives 74% of entry level workers to experience heightened stress, up 10% from Black Friday.
Ian Dade, operations manager at StoreFeeder said, “Black Friday and Christmas are usually the busiest periods of the year, with orders increasing anywhere between 50% and 180%. Naturally, for many staff that means working longer hours, managing more orders and generally feeling the pressure a lot more to get products to their customers.”
Interestingly, the largest amount of stress develops in workers who are in larger warehouses. In fact, it seems not much of a problem at all in warehouses with under 10 staff with just 15% experiencing heightened stress, and just under a quarter of workers in warehouses that have between 10 and 49 staff.
In the larger warehouses, where many will often welcome untrained temporary staff, time pressures, targets and being monitored, are often the things that have the biggest impact on workers overall, both inside and outside of the busy festive period, while support, or lack of, from management also exacerbates mental health among entry level workers particularly.
However, while it may be the time of the year in which stress levels are at their highest, the industry itself has certainly seen improvements.
Workplace culture has played a big part in that. Both the culture and colleagues are having a positive impact on over 60% of workers, while more measures are also being brought in to continue to turn the tide and ease the stress on workers in warehouses.
Wellness programmes, access to wellbeing services and restricting out-of-hours communication is being used by over 90% of warehouses, while the implementation and introduction of technology into warehouses is also having a significant impact on those who use it most.
For example, the study found that for entry level workers, access to technical support and technology is the most effective in boosting mental health, alongside being able to much more efficiently locate stock. Senior professionals, on the other hand, are seeing their mental health improved by the ability to generate and access reports more easily, while easy stock booking processes and access to technical support is also high on the list of technical improvements among middle professionals.
Typically, it is a case where larger scale warehouses are quicker to implement technology, however and in return workers are seeing the larger positive impact on their mental health as a result. And at this time of year, when other stresses take hold in larger warehouses it can make all the difference.
Overall, going paperless, using PDAs to know where stock is located and the simplification of stock transfers individually has improved the mental health of over 40% of warehouse workers, while barcode scan despatch processes has improved the mental health of almost 50% of workers. A huge improvement and a real insight into just how integrating technology can not only revolutionise productivity in the warehouse sector, but have a positive impact on the wellbeing of staff too.
Dade added, “The mental health of warehouse workers has been a prominent focus for many business owners in recent years, and many have come to us to make the process more efficient and accurate in order to ease time pressures on staff, one of the key issues driving mental health problems.
“Our WMS system simplifies the orders and picking process, as well as enabling warehouses to become quicker and more efficient at managing orders, as well as improving the organisation of a warehouse as a whole. It’s pleasing to see this is having a knock on effect to those working on the ground.”
As a result, almost 40% of workers now believe their industry does well in managing mental health in the workplace, but naturally there’s a long way to go over the coming years to make it the consensus, especially during the busier months that warehouse workers are experiencing today.
You can read the full Warehouse Workers Mental Health Report 2025 by clicking here.
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