Work-related stress can kill.
Sometimes it kills quickly with a
stress-induced heart attack. This technically categorizes work-related stress
with other types of fatal exposures to notoriously hazardous substances such as
hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide and arsine gas. Stress can also have a slow
and insidious adverse affect on health – causing or exacerbating depression,
muscle tightness, headaches and a host of other ailments.
Some workplace stress is
unavoidable, and in some cases it can even be a helpful stimulant. Stress
generators such as economic downturns, competition, advancing technologies and
globalization are typically beyond the control of health and safety
professionals. But when the workplace itself is dysfunctional, it becomes a
cause of stress, and it is in such settings that health and safety
professionals have the greatest chance of making a positive impact.
Successful prevention and treatment
of work-related health problems require the identification and correction of
underlying risk factors at the worksite. For example, in the treatment of
musculoskeletal conditions, if an employee presents with deQuervain’s
tendonitis (inflammation of the tendons going to the thumb), it is standard
procedure for a health care professional to conduct an ergonomic investigation
of the work environment to determine whether the patient moves his or her thumb
in a repetitive, awkward and/or forceful way.
Workplace stress assessments are
less accepted as standard practice. There often is controversy over whether
stress is an underlying cause of the injury or illness and whether the
workplace, in fact, plays any role at all. Denial is common because
stress-related health problems often do not have an external marker (such as a
splint) and acknowledgement of causality can have a negative financial impact
on the employer through the workers’ compensation claims process. In addition,
workplace stress assessments can be difficult to perform, require assessment of
managerial style and often result in an uncomfortable summary meeting with the
employee’s supervisor.
Signs of Dysfunction
A methodical approach is required to
get to the root of a dysfunctional workplace and turn it into a functional one.
An evaluation of the stress-producing capability of a worksite takes time and
careful observation. Both front-line employees and managers offer clues based
on what they say and do.
Employees…
Employees in workaholic workplaces
differ from employees in highly functioning workplaces in a number of ways.
…talk about how hard they work
In a highly functional workplace,
employees talk about how much they are getting done, even when they work long
hours. In a workaholic workplace, employees talk a lot about how hard they work
and are far less likely to correlate their actions with a positive business
result or intrinsic satisfaction.
Interestingly, in the workaholic
workplace, the adverse impact of long work hours – late nights, postponed
family time, missed concerts, lost weekends – becomes almost a badge of honor
for many employees. The celebration of this adversity is a key component of the
workplace’s dysfunctionality, but it cannot erase the negative physical and
emotional impacts of work-related stress.
…describe “spinning”
In a highly functional workplace,
employees describe their work as having a sense of purpose and forward
movement. They feel they are accomplishing tasks that support the mission and
vision of the organization.
In workaholic workplaces, employees
complain about misaligned priorities and feel as if they are running in circles
or spinning. They become overwhelmed and suffer pangs of guilt when they can’t
get their routine tasks done in a timely manner because they are reacting to
crises (the familiar refrain “putting out fires”) rather than functioning in a
measured-response mode.
If it gets bad enough, employees
will say it feels as if the workplace is “vibrating” with negative energy.
Employees often correlate spinning and vibrating with their stress symptoms.
Ineffective managers confuse this energy with progress.
…feel their time is wasted
In a highly functional workplace,
stress induced by work demands is mitigated by the fact that employees feel
they are doing something worthwhile. Conversely, in a workaholic workplace
cluttered with activities such as non-productive meetings and writing internal
memos, employees often feel their work time is being wasted. A common phrase in
a dysfunctional setting is: “If they would just let me do my job…” When
employees feel their regular work time is being wasted, they tend to start work
earlier and/or stay later in the day, work weekends and take work at home with
them to catch up. This builds resentment and contributes to stress.
Meanwhile, communications technology
that is intended to be a time-saving tool becomes a cause of stress in a
dysfunctional workplace where “disconnecting” is frowned upon. For example, a
jammed, publicly shared calendar may be celebrated because it creates the
illusion of effective and engaged work – whereas the opposite is more generally
true.
…communicate indirectly
When a conflict arises in the
workaholic workplace, the communication used to resolve it is usually indirect
– an employee complains to a supervisor who talks with another supervisor who
may or may not talk to the employee with whom the conflict has arisen. This
“communication in a silo” aggravates stress because problems are not directly
and immediately confronted and resolved.
The workaholic workplace often has
unwritten rules about who can talk to whom about what. The highly functional
workplace avoids this by encouraging immediate and direct communication between
employees to facilitate problem-solving.
…are thinking about leaving
All workplaces have employee
turnover. Some turnover is productive, such as career advancement or removing
toxic or substandard employees. Highly effective workplaces rarely lose
talented people because of avoidable job dissatisfaction issues.
Employees in a workaholic workplace
can often tick off a list of talented employees with solid personal and family
values who have left the company because job demands are interfering with their
personal responsibilities, happiness and health. Employees who remain behind
often say they are envious of those who are able to move on.
Managers…
Workaholic workplaces exist because
managers construct them that way.
…believe the relationship between
stress and productivity is linear
Managers in workaholic workplaces
frequently misunderstand the relationship between stress and productivity. They
believe that as stress increases productivity increases, regardless of the
stress level. Thus, when productivity fails to meet targets, the solution is to
push workers harder with the objective of increasing performance.
The true relationship between stress
and performance is known as the Yerkes-Dodson curve. As is apparent from the
curve, stress improves performance up to a certain point. After that point,
increased stress decreases performance. Managers in highly functional
workplaces try to keep their workers on the up-slope of the Yerkes-Dodson curve
so added stress results in higher productivity. Managers in workaholic
workplaces push their workers into the downward slope of the curve.
…have a short-term time horizon
Managers in highly functional
workplaces take steps to prevent the long-term adverse consequences associated
with employee flight. Managers in workaholic workplaces tend to focus on
short-term crises and do not appreciate the long-term effects of having an
unhappy but talented workforce. In addition, managers themselves may be under
great pressure because their job security is threatened or their compensation
is tied to short-term financial or production targets. In the workaholic
workplace, considering the long-term implications of a lost key employee is
often an unaffordable luxury.
…have limited expertise in work
content
Vice President Lyndon Johnson once
told House Speaker Sam Rayburn how impressed he was by President John Kennedy’s
advisers, who were described by many as the “best and brightest.” Rayburn
scoffed, “Lyndon, I’d feel a whole lot better if just one of them had run for
dog catcher.” The message was clear: if you plan to manage political
situations, you need to experience it first-hand.
The same is true for management. The
more a manager knows about the details of an employee’s work, the less likely
he or she is to waste an employee’s time. Take a group of welders, for example.
If the supervisor is the best welder in the group and has extensive knowledge
of what the job entails, then it is highly likely that he or she will know
which job demands are most important and which waste time.
A key characteristic of managers in
workaholic workplaces is that they fill the workday with low-yield tasks that
interfere with the fundamental work the employee is trying to do, partly
because they have little personal understanding of what the employee does. When
assessing a manager, ask yourself: “Has he ever run for dogcatcher?”
meaning “If pressed, can he do the job that he is trying to manage?”
The rapid advance of technology has
decreased the useful life span of managers because it is difficult to remain
technologically proficient once the manager leaves day-to-day contact with a
rapidly evolving field.
…focus on generic processes
Managers who lack extensive job
content knowledge frequently fall back on generic management processes. This
often occurs when a newly hired manager has done a similar management job in a
completely different type of industry. Lacking content knowledge in the new
job, the manager relies on what he or she knows – managerial processes.
Managerial process activities – meetings, forms, abstract discussions – need to
be closely tied to work content to make effective use of a worker’s time. The
more managers with low work content knowledge there are in a company, the
greater the likelihood of parallel managerial work processes focused on
low-yield activities. The workaholic workplace often has a cadre of such
managers.
…socialize with other managers
In a highly functioning workplace,
the manager’s office is often on the work floor where he or she is surrounded
by employees performing assigned work. In this circumstance, the manager can
see and correct work inefficiencies and can hear worker dissatisfaction.
The manager in a workaholic
workplace tends to reduce line worker interaction and instead interacts and
socializes with other managers. This allows the workaholic manager to hold on
to a separate reality of what is happening in the workplace. This separate
reality is encouraged if the workplace has a group of similarly isolated
managers who can reinforce its validity.
…are indecisive
When presented with a choice,
managers in highly functional workplaces evaluate the information presented to
them and make a decision. They know they will not always be right and are
confident in their ability to correct a poor decision. This behavior keeps the
organization moving forward.
Managers in workaholic workplaces
are less likely to decide. Under the guise of research and analysis, they
procrastinate. Processes dependent on the pending decision stop or take
unexpected turns. The resulting confusion causes employee stress.
The Prescription
Obviously, no workplace is perfect.
Each has its own unique blend of functional and dysfunctional elements. The
challenge for occupational health and safety professionals is that
dysfunctional workplaces are particularly resistant to change; that’s one
reason why they are dysfunctional in the first place. They must depend on
insight and leadership from the top to successfully inject function and reason
into an illogical, dysfunctional situation.
At a minimum, the occupational
health and safety professional should:
- Inform managers that stress is a significant workplace hazard with real costs for the organization.
- Demonstrate that after a certain level of stress is reached productivity declines.
- Identify specific markers in the workforce that indicate stress is an issue.
- Start a dialogue on the relationship between managerial activity and stress.
- If asked to work with management to improve behavior to reduce stress and increase productivity, the professional should attempt to:
- Identify low-return managerial assignments that clutter the employees’ workday.
- Attempt to make communication patterns more direct.
- Strive to change the culture to reduce managerial isolation.
- Uncover and address barriers to rapid decision making.
Conclusion
Workplace stress deserves the same
degree of attention as other potentially fatal workplace exposures. This often
doesn’t happen. Stress symptoms are belittled. Complaints about workplace
dysfunction are ignored. Incompetent managers will go to great lengths in order
not to look in a mirror at their own shortcomings.
In this setting, occupational health
and safety professionals must be a non-judgmental voice of reason, be willing
to identify markers for workplace dysfunction in the behavior of line employees
and managers, and prescribe steps to improve the workplace’s function. This is
rarely an easy task. It requires tact and perseverance. But it is necessary and
important if workplaces are to perform at an optimal level and employees are to
be protected from the adverse effects of workplace stress.
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