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i. These time-management skills can help minimize procrastination by
focusing efforts on immediate goals and boosting motivation even in
the face of tasks that are less desirable.
b. Physicians have recommended noncompetitive physical exercise, such as
aerobics, walking, jogging, swimming, and riding a bicycle, as a way to
deal with excessive stress levels.
i. These activities increase lung capacity, lower the at-rest heart rate, and
provide a mental diversion from work pressures, effectively reducing
work-related levels of stress.
c. Individuals can also teach themselves to reduce tension through relaxation
techniques such as meditation, hypnosis, and deep breathing.
i. The objective is to reach a state of deep physical relaxation, in which
you focus all your energy on release of muscle tension.
ii. Deep relaxation for 15 or 20 minutes a day releases strain and provides
a pronounced sense of peacefulness, as well as significant changes in
heart rate, blood pressure, and other physiological factors.
d. A growing body of research shows that simply taking breaks from work at
routine intervals can facilitate psychological recovery and reduce stress
significantly and may improve job performance, and these effects are even
greater if relaxation techniques are employed.
e. As we have noted, friends, family, or work colleagues can provide an
outlet when stress levels become excessive. Expanding your social support
network provides someone to hear your problems and offer a more
objective perspective on a stressful situation than your own.
B. Organizational Approaches
1. Several organizational factors that cause stress—particularly task and role
demands—are controlled by management and thus can be modified or
changed.
2. Strategies to consider include improved employee selection and job
placement, training, realistic goal-setting, redesign of jobs, increased
employee involvement, improved organizational communication, employee
sabbaticals, and corporate wellness programs.
a. Selection and Placement. Certain jobs are more stressful than others but,
as we’ve seen, individuals differ in their response to stressful situations.
b. We know individuals with little experience or an external locus of control
tend to be more prone to stress.
c. Selection and placement decisions should take these facts into
consideration.
d. Obviously, management shouldn’t restrict hiring to only experienced
individuals with an internal locus, but such individuals may adapt better to
high-stress jobs and perform those jobs more effectively. Similarly,
training can increase an individual’s self-efficacy and thus lessen job
strain.
3. Goal Setting. We discussed goal-setting in Chapter 7.
a. Individuals perform better when they have specific and challenging goals
and receive feedback on their progress toward these goals.
i. Goals can reduce stress as well as provide motivation.
b. Employees who are highly committed to their goals and see purpose in
their jobs experience less stress because they are more likely to perceive
stressors as challenges rather than hindrances.
c. Specific goals perceived as attainable clarify performance expectations.
d. In addition, goal feedback reduces uncertainties about actual job
performance.
e. The result is less employee frustration, role ambiguity, and stress.
4. Redesigning Jobs. Redesigning jobs to give employees more responsibility,
more meaningful work, more autonomy, and increased feedback can reduce
stress because these factors give employees greater control over work
activities and lessen dependence on others.
a. But as we noted in our discussion of work design, not all employees want
enriched jobs.
b. The right redesign for employees with a low need for growth might be less
responsibility and increased specialization.
c. If individuals prefer structure and routine, reducing skill variety should
also reduce uncertainties and stress levels.
5. Employee Involvement. Role stress is detrimental to a large extent because
employees feel uncertain about goals, expectations, how they’ll be evaluated,
and the like.
a. By giving these employees a voice in the decisions that directly affect
their job performance, management can increase employee control and
reduce role stress.
b. Thus, managers should consider increasing employee involvement in
decision making, because evidence clearly shows that increases in
employee empowerment reduce psychological strain.
6. Organizational Communication. Increasing formal organizational
communication with employees reduces uncertainty by lessening role
ambiguity and role conflict.
a. Given the importance that perceptions play in moderating the
stress–response relationship, management can also use effective
communications as a means to shape employee perceptions.
b. Remember that what employees categorize as demands, threats, or
opportunities at work is an interpretation and that interpretation can be
affected by the symbols and actions communicated by management.
7. Employee Sabbaticals. Some employees need an occasional escape from the
frenetic pace of their work. Companies including Genentech, American
Express, Intel, General Mills, Microsoft, Morningstar, DreamWorks
Animation, and Adobe Systems have begun to provide extended voluntary
leaves.
a. These sabbaticals—ranging in length from a few weeks to several months
—allow employees to travel, relax, or pursue personal projects that
consume time beyond normal vacations.
b. Proponents say they can revive and rejuvenate workers who might
otherwise be headed for burnout.
8. Wellness Programs. Our final suggestion is organizationally supported
wellness programs.
a. These typically provide workshops to help people quit smoking, control
alcohol use, lose weight, eat better, and develop a regular exercise
program; they focus on the employee’s total physical and mental
condition.
b. Some help employees improve their psychological health as well.
c. A meta-analysis of 36 programs designed to reduce stress (including
wellness programs) showed that interventions to help employees reframe
stressful situations and use active coping strategies appreciably reduced
stress levels.
d. Most wellness programs assume employees need to take personal
responsibility for their physical and mental health and that the
organization is merely a means to that end.
II. Summary and Implications for Managers
A. The need for change has been implied throughout this text.
B. For instance, think about attitudes, motivation, work teams, communication,
leadership, organizational structures, human resource practices, and
organizational cultures.
C. Change was an integral part in our discussion of each.
1. If environments were perfectly static, if employees’ skills and abilities were
always up to date and incapable of deteriorating, and if tomorrow were always
exactly the same as today, organizational change would have little or no
relevance to managers.
D. But the real world is turbulent, requiring organizations and their members to
undergo dynamic change if they are to perform at competitive levels.
E. Coping with all these changes can be a source of stress, but with effective
management, challenge can enhance engagement and fulfillment, leading to the
high performance that, as you’ve discovered in this text, is one major goal of the
study of organizational behavior (OB). Specific implications for managers are
below:
1. Consider that, as a manager, you are a change agent in your organization.
a. The decisions you make and your role-modeling behaviors will help shape
the organization’s change culture.
2. Your management policies and practices will determine the degree to which
the organization learns and adapts to changing environmental factors.
3. Some stress is good.
a. Low to moderate amounts of stress enable many people to perform their
jobs better by increasing their work intensity, alertness, and ability to
react. This is especially true if stress arises due to challenges on the job
rather than hindrances that prevent employees from doing their jobs
effectively.
4. You can help alleviate harmful workplace stress for your employees by
accurately matching work-loads to employees, providing employees with
stress-coping resources, and responding to their concerns.
5. You can identify extreme stress in your employees when performance
declines, turnover increases, health-related absenteeism increases, and
engagement declines.
a. However, by the time these symptoms are visible, it may be too late to be
helpful, so stay alert for early indicators and be proactive.
Career OBjectives
How can I bring my team’s overall stress level down?
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Identify the potential environmental, organizational, and personal sources of stress at
work and the role of the individual and cultural differences
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress management
AASCB: Diverse and multicultural work environments; Reflective thinking
My coworkers and I are under a lot of pressure because we have a huge deadline coming
up. We’re working a lot of extra hours, and tensions are starting to ramp up to arguments.
Is there any way I can get my team to chill out? — Hakim
Dear Hakim:
It sounds like you’re facing some of the core issues that produce stress at work: high
demands, critical outcomes, and time pressure. There’s no question tempers can start to
flare under these conditions. While it may not even be desirable to get your team to
relax, or chill out as you say, lowering your team’s aggregate stress level will increase
your group’s effectiveness. Fortunately, there are some well-established ways to help
lower stress in groups. Some of the most effective are directly related to getting people to
recommit to the team:
• To help minimize infighting, get the group to focus on a common goal. Shared
objectives are one of the most effective ways to reduce conflict in times of stress, and
they remind everyone that cooperation is key.
• Review what the team has done and what steps toward the goal remain. When the team
can see how much work they have accomplished, they will naturally feel better.
• When the team feels most tense, take a collective temporary break. It can be difficult to
step away from a project with heavy time demands, but working at a point of maximum
tension and conflict is often counterproductive. A chance to stop and gain perspective
will help everyone recharge and focus.
Remember that minimizing team stress shouldn’t happen through lowering standards and
accepting lower quality work, but by reducing counterproductive organizational
behavior. A positive work environment with high member engagement will do a lot to
move the group forward. A combination of focus, progress, and perspective will
ultimately be the best approach to limiting your stress.
Sources: P. M. Poortvliet, F. Anseel, and F. Theuwis, “Mastery-Approach and Mastery-Avoidance Goals and Their Relation with
Exhaustion and Engagement at Work: The Roles of Emotional and Instrumental Support,” Work & Stress 29 (April 2015): 150–70; J.
P. Trougakos, D. J. Beal, B. H. Cheng, I. Hideg, and D. Zweig, “Too Drained to Help: A Resource Depletion Perspective on Daily
Interpersonal Citizenship Behaviors,” Journal of Applied Psychology 100 (2015): 227–36; and J. P. Trougakos, I. Hideg, B. H.
Cheng,and D. J. Beal, “Lunch Breaks Unpacked: The Role of Autonomy as a Moderator of Recovery during Lunch,” Academy of
Management Journal 57 (2014): 405–21.
Myth or Science?
“When You’re Working Hard, Sleep Is Optional”
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Identify the -physiological, psychological, and behavioral symptoms of stress at work
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress management
AASCB: Reflective thinking
This is false. Individuals who do not get enough sleep are unable to perform well on the
job. A recent study found that sleeplessness costs U.S. employers $63.2 billion per year,
almost $2,300 per employee, partially due to decreased productivity and increased safety
issues. Sleep deprivation has been cited as a contributing factor in heart disease, obesity,
stroke, and cancer. It can also lead to disastrous accidents. For example, U.S. military
researchers report that sleep deprivation is one of the top causes of friendly fire (when
soldiers mistakenly fire on their own troops), and 20 percent of auto accidents are due to
drowsy drivers. More than 160 people on Air India Flight 812 from Dubai to Mangalore
were killed when pilot Zlatko Glusica awoke from a nap and, suffering from sleep inertia,
overshot the runway in India’s third-deadliest air crash.
Sleeplessness is affecting the performance of millions of workers. According to a recent
study, one-third of U.S. employees in most industries, and over more than one-quarter of
workers in the finance and insurance industry, are sleep-deprived, getting fewer than 6
hours of sleep per night (7 to 9 are recommended). More than 50 percent of U.S. adults
age 19 to 29, 43 percent age 30 to 45, and 38 percent age 46 to 64 report that they rarely
or never get a good nightly rest on weekdays.
Research has shown that lack of sleep impairs our ability to learn skills and find
solutions, which may be part of the reason law enforcement organizations,
SuperBowl-winning football teams, and half of the Fortune 500 companies employ
“fatigue management specialists” as performance consultants. Meanwhile, managers and
employees increasingly take prescription sleep aids, attend sleep labs, and consume
caffeine in efforts to either sleep better or reduce the effects of sleeplessness on their
performance. These methods often backfire. Studies indicate that prescription sleep aids
increase sleep time by only 11 minutes and cause short-term memory loss. The effects of
sleep labs may not be helpful after the sessions are over. And the diminishing returns of
caffeine, perhaps the most popular method of fighting sleep deprivation (74 percent of
U.S. adults consume caffeine per day), require the ingestion of increasing amounts to
achieve alertness, which can make users jittery before the effect wears off and leave them
exhausted.
When you’re working hard, it’s easy to consider using sleep hours to get the job done,
and to think that the stress and adrenaline from working will keep you alert. It’s also easy
to consider artificial methods in attempts to counteract the negative impact of sleep
deprivation. However, research indicates that when it comes to maximizing performance
and reducing accidents, we are not even good at assessing our impaired capabilities when
we are sleep deprived. In the end, there is no substitute for a good night’s sleep.
Sources: M. J. Breus, “Insomnia Could Kill You—By Accident,” The Huffington Post, May 9, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
dr-michael-j-breus/insomnia-could-kill-you-byaccident_b_7235264.html; D. K. Randall, “Decoding the Science of Sleep,” The Wall
Street Journal, August 4–5, 2012, C1–C2; M. Sallinen, J. Onninen, K. Tirkkonen, M.-L.Haavisto, M. Harma, T. Kubo, et al., “Effects
of Cumulative Sleep Restriction on Self-Perceptions While Multitasking,” Journal ofSleep Research, June 2012, 273–81; and P.
Walker, “Pilot Was Snoring before Air India Crash,” The Guardian, November 17, 2010,
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/17/sleepy-pilot-blamed-air-india-crash.
Class Exercise
1. Divide the class into groups of three to five students.
2. Ask them to discuss their sleep habits. Have they ever felt sleep deprived? Did
they feel their performance at work or school was negatively affected as a result?
3. Ask students to identify jobs where sleep deprivation is likely to occur and where
it is likely to negatively affect performance.
4. Then ask students to research how organizations are helping to reduce sleep
deprivation in the workplace.
5. Finally, ask the groups to share their findings in a class discussion.
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as
BlackBoard 9.1, Breeze, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See
http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information.
An Ethical Choice
Managers and Employee Stress during Organizational
Change
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Describe the individual and organizational approaches to managing stress at work
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress management
AACSB: Ethical understanding and reasoning; Reflective thinking
When organizations are in a state of change, employees feel the stress. In fact, a recent
study indicated that job pressures, often due to downsizing and other organizational
changes, are the second leading cause of stress. Dealing with that stress has long been in
the domain of workers, who could turn to constructive (counselors, health professionals,
support networks) or destructive (alcohol, gossip, counterproductive work behaviors)
options as coping mechanisms. Employees who couldn’t cope with stress suffered job
burnout and headed to the unemployment line.
Beneficent employers provided employee assistance programs (EAP) through
subcontracted counselors or in-house HR departments to counsel employees dealing with
stress. Managers simply steered individuals toward these resources when workplace
problems indicated a need for intervention. This help often arrived too late to mitigate the
negative outcomes of stress such as lost productivity and burnout—and sometimes too
late to save the employee’s job. Research suggests that continually occurring job
stressors, such as when organizations are in the midst of change, reduce employee
engagement because workers are deprived of recovery periods. Employee stress thus
needs to be addressed proactively at the manager level if it is to be effective, even before
there are negative work outcomes.
On the one hand, managers are responsible for maximizing productivity and realize that
organizations increase profitability when fewer employees perform increased work. On
the other hand, overwork will increase employee stress, particularly when the
organization is in a state of change due to downsizing or growth. Managers who keep
head count low and workloads high may find short-term gains from lower workforce
costs but long-term losses from negative stress outcomes, such as increased turnover and
lowered productivity. Experts recommend that managers consider hiring the workers they
need to keep employee workloads reasonable, adding reward programs to keep top
employees engaged, and cutting non-workforce costs to maintain profitability. Smaller
methods, such as teaching employees stress reduction techniques and creating a
“greenery room” for a nature retreat from the office environment, can also be helpful.
Managers must make the ethical choice between spending more money now on labor
costs and stress reduction methods versus later on the more hidden but salient costs of
employee stress.
As research increasingly indicates, when employees react to stress, they and their
organizations suffer the consequences. Managers must, therefore, consider their
opportunity to help alleviate the stress before it’s too late.
Sources: E. Frauenheim, “Stressed & Pressed,” Workforce Management (January 2012), pp. 18–22; J. B. Oldroyd and S. S. Morris,
“Catching Falling Stars: A Human Resource Responses to Social Capital’s Detrimental Effect of Information Overload on Star
Employees,” Academy of Management Review 37 (2012), pp. 396–418; and S. Sonnentag, E. J. Mojza, E. Demerouti, and A. B.
Bakker, “Reciprocal Relations Between Recovery and Work Engagement: The Moderating Role of Job Stressors,” Journal of Applied
Psychology 97 (2012), pp. 842–853.
Class Exercise
1. Divide the class into teams of three to five students each.
2. Ask the student teams to share information with each other about stress they have
experienced in school. They might mention such things as project deadlines,
group dysfunction, dating, bullying, social networking, and others.
3. Have the students discuss how they managed the stress, if they did.
4. Have the groups create an action plan using concepts from the chapter to improve
their stress management skills.
5. Ask the teams to report to the class on what they believe to be good approaches to
managing stress.
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as
BlackBoard 9.1, Breeze, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See
http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information.
Personal Inventory Assessments
Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale
How well can you tolerate the ambiguity that change brings? Take this PIA to learn more
about your tolerance level for this challenge.
Point/Counterpoint
Companies Should Encourage Stress Reduction
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Describe the individual and organizational approaches to managing stress at work
Learning Outcome: Discuss the effects of stress in the workplace and methods of stress management
AACSB: Reflective thinking
Point
Companies make substantial investments in their employees, so the health and well-being
of the workforce is a central concern. One of the most direct ways to provide assistance
to employees is to engage in one of the stress-reduction interventions described in this
chapter.
One major financial benefit of stress reduction programs is a reduction in health-related
costs. Workplace stress leads to dozens of negative and expensive health-related
consequences. Stress weakens the immune system, leading to increased illness and
sickness absences. If employees feel extreme stress related to work, they may be more
likely to come in when they are contagious, leading to sickness for many others. Over the
longer run, stress levels also can contribute to conditions like heart disease that ultimately
result in very expensive medical treatments. These medical treatments, in turn, increase
employer health insurance expenses.
Reductions in employee stress can facilitate job performance. Employees who are
overburdened have difficulty concentrating, can lose energy and motivation at work, and
find it difficult to come up with new and creative ideas. Stress can also create conflicts
with coworkers and lead to rude or hostile treatment of clients or customers. Ultimately,
employees who are experiencing high levels of stress may leave, so all the costs attendant
upon turnover are incurred.
Stress reduction programs also have an ethical component. The workplace generates a
great deal of stress for many employees, so employers have a certain responsibility to
offset its negative consequences. Stress reduction programs are a direct way to help
employees feel better. Finally, when employers show concern for employees by helping
reduce stress, employees feel more committed.
Counterpoint
While employers may have a direct financial interest in certain elements of stress
reduction, it’s worth asking whether investing in stress reduction programs is actually a
good idea. The first problem is operational. Some stress reduction interventions are
expensive, requiring professional facilitators or exercise equipment. These can take a
long time to show financial returns, and the up-front costs of researching, designing, and
implementing them are substantial. A growing number of corporations report that the
expected returns on investment in wellness programs have failed to materialize. And the
time employees spend in stress reduction interventions is time they spend not working.
Another problem is that stress reduction programs are invasive. Should your boss or
other individuals in the workplace tell you how you’re supposed to feel? Many stress
reduction programs step even further into employees’ personal lives by encouraging open
discussions about sources of stress. Do you really want your manager and coworkers to
know why you’re experiencing stress? The more that sensitive topics related to stress are
discussed, the harder it is to keep work relationships professional.
A final concern is that it is too hard to draw the line between stress from work and
general life stress. A company’s stress reduction program may try to target problems of
work overload or social conflict, but these issues often affect other areas of life. How
should a stress reduction program operate when the reasons for employee stress come,
say, from a sick relative or conflicts with family members?
Sources: L. Vanderkam, “The Dark Side of Corporate Wellness Programs,” Fast Company, June 8, 2015,
http://www.fastcompany.com/3047115/the-dark-side-of-corporate-wellness-programs; D. R. Stover and J. Wood, “Most Company
Wellness Programs Are a Bust,” Gallup Business Journal, February 4, 2015, http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/
181481/company-wellness-programs-bust.aspx; A. Frakt and A. E. Carroll, “Do Wellness Programs Work? Usually Not,” New York
Times, September 11, 2014, ttp://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/upshot/do-workplace-wellnessprograms-work-usually-not.html.
Class Exercise
1. Choose two teams of three to five students each. (The rest of the class will act as a
jury.)
2. Have them prepare, outside of class, one side of the issue to debate in class,
Point or Counterpoint.
3. Create a controlled debate, giving each side up to 8 minutes to make its case, 3
minutes to cross-examine the other side, 5 minutes in class to prepare a 3-to-5
minute rebuttal, and then a final 1-minute closing argument.
4. Have the remainder of the class vote on who made the stronger case.
5. Close with a discussion of the issue, leading the students to understand that this is
not an either/or situation, and that the best response incorporates elements of both
positions.
6. This will take approximately 45-60 minutes.
