01/ 25/ 2005
by Charles R. McConnell
It's no secret that, compared with a few years ago, stress is up among American workers. Princeton Survey Research Associates concluded that today's workers experience more on-the-job stress than the workers of a generation ago. For many people, work is the No. 1 source of stress in their lives.
Being stressed out seems to be a fact of life in many business situations. Many employees feel pressured to perform, and an increasing number are expressing unhappiness with levels of pay and limited career advancement opportunities.
Why are stress levels up? We can blame a number of factors, including intensified competition, narrow profit margins, tightened staffing and fear of layoffs. The leaner workforce and the continuing level of unemployment are contributing to job-related stress, as is the increasing inability of many workers to keep up with the growing demands of their jobs.
When job-related stress increases, on-the-job injuries and health-care costs also increase. According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, stress trips an alarm in the brain which then responds by preparing the body for defense — the "fight or flight" reaction. But if one neither fights nor flees, surging hormones and tightened muscles linger and ill effects begin to surface.
Stress-related illnesses tend to incapacitate employees for longer periods than many other problems. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employees who must miss work for illness caused by stress or anxiety lose an average of 20 days. And stress often brings on other problems such as insomnia and depression.
There's always a danger that employees who are stressed by productivity demands and unhappy with minimal raises will start quitting as soon as the job market begins to turn around. And it's the high performers who are most likely to bail out when they feel under-appreciated and inadequately rewarded.
The problem of job stress is not limited to your employees. You are a prime candidate for burnout. Burnout is in fact one of the biggest problems faced by small-business owners, hampering productivity, impeding decisionmaking ability and reducing the pleasure of work.
What can you do about job-related stress? First, you need to be aware that although once in a while a special push for output is understandable, steady, extraordinary pressure is counter-productive. Such might be appropriate in the short run, but as the effects of stress accrue, the effort will negatively affect output and hurt the bottom line.
Stress in the work group can be reduced or controlled by ensuring that your employees have the following:
- Reasonable assignments that fall within their capabilities
- Sufficient time to do the work
- Information on decisions that affect them
Also, two items that can effectively mitigate stress are reduced uncertainty about career development opportunity and an increased sense of job security.
Some of the foregoing, such as job security, can be tough to address during hard times. However, there are active steps you can take to address worker stress. Consider the problem of a tyrannical supervisor. A tyrannical supervisor might get short-run compliance but over time will inspire turnover that boosts recruiting costs and cuts into productivity. Also, although special effort is needed on occasion, consistently working people excess hours steadily increases worker stress.
There are a number of simple stress-relief activities available to you and your employees. First healthy eating, sufficient rest and regular exercise are effective stress reducers. Even a 15- or 20-minute walk at lunchtime can have a stress-controlling effect.
Job rotation, varied assignments and breaks in the daily routine are all stress relievers that lie well within your control. And for many employees, arrangements of workstations and assignments so that frequent social interaction is possible can alleviate job-related stress. For individuals on the job, continuing stress relief can be as elementary as periodically performing simple deep-breathing exercises.
For you and your employees alike, time off — weekends, vacations and holidays — is always important for relieving stress and recharging your personal batteries. And true, time off means time away from cell phones and pagers.
It's essential to remember that increasing pressure on your employees may temporarily increase output, but that sustained extraordinary demands create stresses that hamper productivity and eventually drag down the bottom line.
