According to the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development), a new study by University of East Anglia's (UAE) Norwich Business School, in conjunction with Stockholm University, when employees’ perceptions of procedural justice at work changed – relating to the processes used to decide on rewards, pay, promotions and workload – so did their assessment of their health.

The research also showed that those reporting a positive change in procedural fairness assessed their health more positively, while those reporting a negative change in procedural fairness gave a poorer evaluation of their personal health.

The findings, which looked at more than 5,800 people working in Sweden, suggest employers could improve employees' health by implementing more transparent procedures around decision-making relating to aspects such as pay and rewards.

"Justice is important,” Constanze Eib, who led the study and is a lecturer in organisational behaviour at UAE, said. “People are impacted by their justice perceptions and how they feel their organisation and supervisors treat them. If you feel fairly treated you are more engaged.

"If people feel unfairly treated, they not only decrease their performance – they might become a less good employee by coming in late or taking extended lunch breaks. It is serious from the individual perspective in terms of their health, and for the organisation because it affects business performance and how long people stay in a workplace."

"If an organisation does not make it clear why someone gets a promotion and why someone gets more pay than another person doing the same job, that is procedural injustice – there is no procedure and we don't know what is going on,” Cary Cooper, president of the CIPD and a professor at Manchester Business School, said.“It is one of the factors that can create stress, which leads to either mental or physical ill health.”

"It is about being transparent about what it will take to get promoted, to get more money, to be allowed flexible working when you apply for it. The more transparent a business is, the more likely it is to minimise the procedural injustice issues," Cooper said.

"The employment relationship is very important for employee wellbeing, and so when this relationship appears to have been breached with a perception of unfairness – be that in payment, workload compared to other members of staff, employee voice – this can lead to reduced wellbeing (an increase in depression and anxiety) and employee stress – which are risk factors for both sickness absence and staff turnover," Zofia Bajorek, a researcher at The Work Foundation, said.

"The real big factor is how you are managed,” Cooper said. “If you have an abrasive line manager that can cause you to get ill, and if you consistently work long hours that can cause you to get ill. If you are consistently told your job is not safe, and if there is a lack of flexibility and balance, it can damage your health. These are the real heavyweight issues."