Stress Management

1
Stress Management
2
Stress In Organizations

• High personal effort at work, coupled with low
  rewards, doubled the chance of coronary heart
  disease
• Managers run twice the chance of having a heart
  attack the week after they fire someone, or face
  a high pressure deadline
• Almost half of people say their job is stressful,
  and over one-third think of quitting

3
Stress in America

• France 39 hours a week
• Germany 40 hours a week
• Japan - 40 of workers believe they will die from
  stress - 49 hours
• US 44 hours a week
• Individualism, Tolerance for Uncertainty,
  Masculinity
• 33 bring work home
• 19 days a year holiday vs 42 in Germany
• Laptops, cell phones and e-mail
• 30 of all workers comp/disability had
  co-existing mental health conditions

4
Stress in America

• 75 of all treated stress is work related
• 20-30 year olds are suffering from physical
  reactions to stress that 40-50 year olds used to
  experience
• Stress related treatment can cost 15,000 per
  episode

5
What is stress?

• Both a stimulus and a response
• Taking a test, traffic, being late, disagreement
• Stressor
• Headache, tension, accelerated heartbeat
• Adaptive response, moderated by individual
  differences, that is a consequence of any action,
  situation, or event that place special demands on
  a person

6
What makes a stimulus stressful?

• Source of challenge, threat or harm
• Importance
• Significant or insignificant
• Uncertainty
• Not knowing is worse than knowing
• Duration
• Acute vs. chronic

7
Reactions to stressFrom Organizations and
Individuals

• Ignore it
• Tough it out
• Find ways to relieve it
• Change people
• Change organizations

8
The Stress Model
Stressors
Outcomes
Individual Level Group Level Organization
Level Non-Work
Behavioral Cognitive Physiological
Stress
Individual Stress Moderators
9
The Stress Model
Stressors
Outcomes
Stress moderators can affect whether or not a
stressor leads to stress
Individual Level Group Level Organization
Level Non-Work
Behavioral Cognitive Physiological
Stress
Individual Stress Moderators
10
The Stress Model
Stressors
Outcomes
or how an individual reacts to the presence
of stress
Individual Level Group Level Organization
Level Non-Work
Behavioral Cognitive Physiological
Stress
Individual Stress Moderators
11
Individual Level Stressors

• Can be just about anything
• Role Conflict multiple expectations about job
• Lower satisfaction, increased tension and
  turnover
• Conflict among work and non-work goals
• Role Overload
• Qualitative lacking ability to complete
• Quantitative too much to do

12
Optimal Level of Stress

• Too little stress leads to boredom, decreased
  motivations, apathy and absenteeism
• Right amount of stress leads to high energy, high
  motivation, calmness and sharp perception

13
Group/Org Level Stressors

• Participation
• Inter-group Relationships
• Politics
• Lack of feedback
• Lack of Career Opportunities
• Downsizing
• Organizational Change

14
Non-Work Stressors

• Stressors outside the workplace
• Can clearly impact the work environment
• Behavior
• Performance

15
Behavioral Outcomes

• Satisfaction At Dupont, 25 has rejected
  promotions
• Performance
• Absenteeism
• Turnover 40 attributed to stress
• Accidents
• Substance abuse
• Health care costs

16
Cognitive Outcomes

• Poor decision making
• Concentration
• Forgetfulness
• Frustration
• Apathy
• Depression
• Aggression

17
Physiological Outcomes

• Blood Pressure
• Cholesterol
• CHD

18
Organizational Outcomes

• Impacts performance, efficiency, quality,
  service, effectiveness, and ultimately money
• If productivity is reduced just 3, thats 30
  people in a 1,000 person organization
• Assuming 40K wages benefits 1.2M
• Wal-mart has 1M employees
• 30,000 40K 1.2B
• Net Income last year 6.5B

19
Stress Moderators

• Personality
• 1) The Big Five
• Extroversion sociable stronger network
• Emotional stability positive start, less likely
  to be overwhelmed stress hardy
• Agreeableness affects interactions with others
• Conscientiousness strongly linked to success
  and performance
• Openness to experience better able to manage
  stressful situations

20
Stress Moderators

• 2) Locus of Control extent to which you think
  you can control your own outcomes
• Internals feel they can control their outcomes,
  but might suffer stress when they are stifled
• Externals will be stressed when they have to
  assume control
• Match between reality of situation and beliefs
  about where control resides

21
Stress Moderators

• 3) Self-efficacy feeling of confidence and the
  ability to perform
• Opportunities/challenges or threats/problems

22
Stress Moderators

• Social Support
• Emotional, appraisal support, informational
  support
• Work and non-work support

23
Employee Assistance Programs

• Programs designed to deal with a wide variety of
  stress-related problems
• 1) Diagnosis
• 2) Treatment
• 3) Screening
• 4) Prevention

24
Employee Assistance Programs

• Trust is crucial
• Program can and will provide help
• Confidentiality will be maintained
• No implications for future performance and
  evaluations

25
Wellness Programs

• Focus on employees overall physical and mental
  health
• Stress and health can not be divorced
• Hypertension identification and control
• Smoking cessation
• Physical fitness and exercise
• Diet and nutrition
• Job and personal stress management

26
More Novel Approaches

• Massages
• Sports Activities
• Pets in cubicles
• Recreational Facilities, aerobics
• reimbursement/subsidies
• On-site cafeterias
• Child care
• Flexible time/Job sharing

27
Effectiveness Wellness Programs

• Top Management Support and Funding
• Healthy companies do not happen by accident
• Union Pacific Railroad pays 42.27 per employee
• Providence Everett Medical Center - 300 to get
  involved. 52 of 2,700 employees - earned 31
  ROI.
• Unions should support
• Multifactor, On-going effort
• Employee involvement in planning, implementation
  and maintenance
• Managers who dont understand their own stress
  process will not be very understanding of others

28
Effective Wellness Programs

• Strongly stated objectives
• But not everything is measurable
• Free participation
• Confidentiality
• Bottom Line is the Bottom Line
• Knowledge workers require a different approach

29
Self-Care Programs

• Provides wellness and health-care education and
  information to employees to utilize good health
  practices and control medical costs
• Phone counseling to determine immediacy
  suggesting appropriate alternatives, tracking
  wellness among employees
• Address the costs of chronic illness
• Sending employees to a boot-camp spa

30
Individual Approaches

• 1) Cognitive Techniques individuals thoughts in
  the form of expectations, beliefs or assumptions,
  create labels to a stressor and lead to a
  matching emotional response
• Magnifying
• Overgeneralization
• Personalization
• Health more determined by positive, purposeful
  life than workouts and diets
• Reframing

31
Individual Approaches

• 2) Relaxation Training reduce arousal level and
  bring a calmer psychological and physiological
  state
• Psychological calm, sense of control
• Physiological lower respiration, breathing,
  heart rate
• Breathing exercises, muscle relaxation,
  visualization, environmental, mental rests

32
Individual Approaches - Relaxation

• Strike a new pose
• Take a walk, focusing on the mechanics of walking
• Stretching
• Breathing
• Clench stomach and pelvic muscles and hold
• Divert your attention through imagination

33
Individual Approaches

• 3) Meditation
• 4) Biofeedback training process by which
  individuals learn to control bodily functions
  such as heart rate, temperature, brain waves,
  tension, stomach acidity, reducing migraines