Stress and Well-Being at work
2.1 Introduction to stress and well being at work ............................................................... 1
2.1.1 Job Stress goes global ............................................................................................ 1
2.2 Understanding job stress and its components ............................................................... 1
2.3
A model of causes and consequences of stress ....................................................... 2
2.3.1
Environmental factors ..................................................................................... 2
2.3.2
Organisational factors ..................................................................................... 2
2.3.3
Personal Lifestyle factors that can aggravate stress:....................................... 2
2.3.4
Individual differences .................................................................................... 2
2.3.5
Consequences of stress ................................................................................... 3
2.4
Individual approaches to managing stress .............................................................. 3
2.5 Organisational programmes of wellness and job stress management ........................... 3
2.5.1
Corporate Wellness plans go after the not so well employees........................ 3
2.6 Downsizing: a new form of permanent job insecurity? ................................................ 4
2.7 Semi last word on downsizing ...................................................................................... 4
2.1 Introduction to stress and well being at work
 Stressed out employees
o Make more physical and mental health insurance claims
o Are less productive
o Exhibit more turnover, absenteeism and substance
 Things that stress employees
o Unfair and demanding bosses or managers
o Unsupportive and abrasive co-workers
o Job responsibilities that exceed their authority and time resources
2.1.1 Job Stress goes global
 Japanese work too much
2.2 Understanding job stress and its components
 Our perceptual mechanism causes us to interpret a stressor as a positive or
negative thing
 Distress is the dysfunctional result of stress and it may mean that the employee is
unsuccessful in adapting to or removing the stressor from his work environment
 General Adaptation Syndrome:
o Alarm: Fight or flight gives rise to increased heart rate
o Resistance: body tries to re-establish a normal state using more resources
to adapt to the stressor
o Exhaustion: after chronic exposure to a stressor, the body begins to wear
down
2.3 A model of causes and consequences of stress
 Researchers agree there are three categories of job stress :
o Environmental
o Organisational
o Individual
 Categories of consequences of job stress
o Physiological
o Psychological
o Behavioural
2.3.1 Environmental factors
 Economic uncertainty
 Political uncertainty
 Technological uncertainty
2.3.2 Organisational factors
 Task demands: stressors related to your job e.g. variety and feedback
 Role demands: conflicts that arise between the employees personal values and
those of the organisation, expectations amongst peers
 Interpersonal demands: pressures created by groups and co-workers eg. Lack of
collaboration
 Organisational structure: extent to which organisations are highly formalised –
more bureaucratic may mean less stress but also less productivity
 Organisational leadership: dominant culture as defined by CEO e.g. short term
gain vs. long term
 Organisational life cycle design: each stage produces different stresses
2.3.3 Personal Lifestyle factors that can aggravate stress:
 Family problems
 Financial problems
2.3.4 Individual differences
 Perception: it’s a moderator because it allows us to differentiate between reality
and how we perceive reality
 Job experience – more the better
 Locus of control: whether you are an internaliser or an externaliser
 Type A behaviour have the following characteristics:
o Work long hours with constant deadlines
o Take work home
o Constantly raise the bar for themselves
o Easily irritated by co-workers
 Type A’s aren’t automatically stressed, it depends it they are aggressive towards
others
2.3.5 Consequences of stress
 Physiological
 Psychological : depression
 Behavioural: absenteeism, alcohol
2.4 Individual approaches to managing stress





Exercise
Relaxation
Diet
Opening up
Professional help
2.5 Organisational programmes of wellness and job
stress management
 Reward performance and productivity, not ‘face time’ spent working (quality
rather than quantity)
 Live by your values and encourage others to live by theirs (live and let live)
 Build respect based on trust and respect
 In general, loyalty and performance spring from one to one work relationships
that reflect a supervisors concern for stressors that can act on subordinates
2.5.1 Corporate Wellness plans go after the not so well
employees
 Some companies try to target wellness plans specifically to unwell employees
 Problem focused plans –focused on helping to reduce stress:
o Time management
o Mentoring
o Flexitime
 Emotional based – help cope with stress
o Individual
 Exercise
 Councelling
o Organisation
 Sabatical leave
 Medical check ups
2.6 Downsizing: a new form of permanent job
insecurity?
 Some think downsizing is caused by free trade and jobs being exported
 But the real reasons are:
o Domestic competition – deregulation
o Merger mania
o Reduction in Government spending and labour market involvement –
reducing ‘social employment’
o Small is beautiful: bigger companies trying to mimic the flexibility of
smaller ones
o Restless shareholders: looking for short term share value increases
2.7 Semi last word on downsizing
 Job security is not the same as employment security
 Job security is dependent on specialised knowledge and its on the wane
 Employment security relies on wide experience and skills in different phases and
activities within an industry – it is increasing
 Employees are costing more with rising costs of healthcare and wages
Stress – stressed out employees make more health claims, less productive and exhibit
more turnover, absenteeism, and substance abuse. Karoshi – sudden death by heart attack
Job Stress and its components – stressors are objects, events, and situations in physical
and social environment - stress response is mental or physical reaction to a stressor
Eutress – good stress distress – bad stress
General adaptation syndrome – Alarm, Resistance, Exhaustion
Causes and consequences of stress – environmental, organizational, individual lead to
physiological, psychological, and behavioral symptoms
Draw Stress Model Figure 2.2
Environmental factors – Economic, political, technological uncertainty,
Organizational factors – Task demands – extent to which you experience autonomy,
variety and feedback. Noise level, vibration, speed of work flow. Role demands –
conflicts between employees personal values and supervisory and org values.
Downsizing – role overload, Role ambiguity - poor job understanding and not knowing
where to start a new job, Interpersonal demands – pressures created by groups and coworkers, Organizational structure – extent to which ORG is highly formalized, rules
and policies that constrain work choices of employees, Organizational leadership –
dominant culture created by leadership, Organizational life cycle stage – establishment
– growth, maturity or decline. growth and maturity may cause org to become structured
and formalized.
Personal Factors – Family problems – divorce, aging parents’ children, and Financial
problems – live beyond means
Individual differences – perception, locus of control, job experience, Type A behavior.
Perception – reality matters less than perception as a cause of stress. Job experience –
when acquired reduces stress. Locus of control – externalizes believe fate creates
outcomes. Internalizes perceive job to be less stressful Type A – achieve more in less
time. Work hard long hours, take work home, and become impatient
Consequences – Physiological – changes in metabolism, heart rate, blood pressure, back
trouble, hypertension, Diabetes, cancer, Psychological – mental health anger, anxiety,
depression, nerousness, burnout , Job burnout is a prolonged withdrawal from work –
causes the sufferer to devalue work Behavioral – changes in performance, absenteeism,
job hopping, eating habits, exersice patterens, cigratte smoking, alcohol , drugs,
Approaches to managing stress: exercise, relaxation, diet, opening up, professional help
ORG programs of wellness and job stress – reward performance and productivity not
face time, live by your values and encourage other to live by theirs, build respect and
trust
Downsizing – reason – Domestic competition, merger mania, government spending and
labor market relations, restless shareholders, small is better
Job security – contingent on firm specific knowledge. Clearly threatened by downsizing
Employment security – wide experience and knowledge, have variety of skills
Summary Points
• Alarm is the initiation of the fight or flight physiological and psychological response to stress and
it mobilizes the body and mind to defend them against physical threat.
• Behavioral stress symptoms are employees’ actions that denote low performance in
attentiveness and lack of carefulness in work. The existence of these symptoms in employees
may suggest that they are nearing the exhaustion phase in General Adaptation Syndrome.
• Cumulative stress effect occurs as stressors accumulate in a multiplicative fashion and as
employees’ resources and capacities to cope with stress remain the same or deteriorate in the
face of growing or unlimited distressors on the job.
• Distress is a negative physical and psychological reaction to a stressor. • Environmental stress
factors originate from economic, political or technological uncertainty and induce alarm reaction
or press employees with limited stress coping resources into exhaustion in General Adaptation
Syndrome.
• Eustress is a positive physical and psychological reaction to a stressor. • Exhaustion is the final
stage of General Adaptation Syndrome, and is the wear and tear on the body and mind created
by chronic stress overload. • General Adaptation Syndrome is a model that shows how all living
things react to stressors. • Individual stress factors represent personal life circumstances and
relationships which induce General Adaptation Syndrome.
• Job burnout is prolonged psychological withdrawal from work in employees who have come to
devalue their work.
• Karoshi is a fatalistic Japanese expression that means to die of a heart attack or stroke on the
job.
• Organizational stress factors are characteristics of the organization that induce General
Adaptation Syndrome.
• Physiological stress symptoms are changes in a person’s metabolism and bodily processes that
can occur as headaches, high blood pressure and heart disease.
• Psychological stress symptoms are chronic negative emotional reactions to stress such as
anxiety, irritability and depression. When numerous and consistent, they probably indicate that an
employee has entered the exhaustion phase of General Adaptation Syndrome.
• Resistance is that phase of General Adaptation Syndrome where a person uses his body and
mind to cope with higher stress loads.
• Stressors are demands on our minds or bodies that are made by objects, events or people in
our environments.
• Stress response can be either a physiological or a psychological reaction to a stressor or both.
• Type A behavior is the action emotion pattern characterized by competitiveness, impatience and
hostility.