We have created an entire population group that doesn't feel they can do well enough. We have now streamlined and squeezed the lemon so much – and for so long – that we have created a huge population group struggling to find meaning in their professional lives. And we really need to take that seriously – now.

623,000 Danes. That's how many have poor mental health, according to the Health Authority's report from March this year. The report also reveals that one in four adult Danes believes their daily life is characterized by a high level of stress.

Unfortunately, the numbers speak their all too clear language. We have simply reached a point where the prevailing growth paradigm is strongly reflected in well-being measurements, and what we see in the Health Authority's new report is probably just the small tip of the large iceberg. My guess is that we will increasingly see how constant efficiency measures and endless cost-cutting contribute to creating despondency among large professional groups that ethically and humanely cannot live with the feeling of not being able to do well enough. They simply lose meaning and motivation, and it hits the psyche hard.

If you look at statistics from Denmark, they also indicate relentless efficiency in the number of 'warm hands' in the public sector. Thus, statistics from Denmark Statistics show that while the number of highly educated academics in municipalities has grown by 6,300, the overall number has decreased by 35,000.  

One can fear that the narrowing of expertise with direct contact with citizens has created such pressure on the remaining ones that they lose presence, meaningfulness, and a large part of their professional pride.

Wrong to individualize the problem
The economic and ethical frameworks for professional pride must be restored if we are to break the stress curve. Therefore, it is not helpful to individualize the Danes' dissatisfaction, as expressed when politicians reject that the reforms of recent decades bear some blame – but that Danes' poor mental health is rather due to their smartphone and online habits – as hinted by our current Minister of Health, Ellen Trane Nørby.

When connecting Danes' increasing stress with their online habits, one is focusing on a symptom, not the real problem. The fact that we Danes strive to be online 24/7 is due to an increasing demand for efficiency and a societal structure that requires us to be available all the time.

So, it is the way we have structured our society that we need to look at. We need to start taking the various professional calls and research in the field of working environment seriously and put an end to the efficiency hysteria.

From research, we know, among other things, that we create well-being by thinking in terms of meaning, coherence, by providing space for autonomy, prioritizing influence, and allowing employees to perform with their expertise. And we don't achieve this by streamlining, increasing control and surveillance, cutting back, and extinguishing fires in the short term. According to well-being researchers, this is precisely what creates dissatisfaction.

Important to focus on presence
While political pressure must be exerted to create reforms that provide better conditions for well-being, each of us must make an effort to seek presence – to counterbalance the demands for efficiency and the feeling of not being able to do well enough.

Although it is difficult, it is a really good idea as a professional to form alliances with oneself and one's colleagues and together insist on focusing on the presence with the citizen in the performance of the core service. And more than ever, it has become important for us as employees to share the good stories with each other – stories about how, despite efficiency pressures, we make a difference every day – for the patient in the hospital, the child in kindergarten, the student in school, the elderly person in the nursing home, etc.