HEALTH STRESS SPECIAL Stressed out by work? You're not alone
If
you had asked any worker since the Industrial Revolution whether he
or she was experiencing stress on the job, the answer would likely
have been in the affirmative— and emphatic. But workplace experts
say something unusual is going on today.
Global competition, downsizing and the constant state of being electronically tethered to the office are combining to create a perhaps unprecedented level of stress. "Absolutely, there is no question about that," says Professor Stewart Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project.
"If you look at the span of the last 50 years, we know people are working more, that more of their waking attention is devoted to work and work-related decisions, and it's a challenge because the ubiquity of technology has enabled 24/7 communication. For most of us, we didn't grow up with these tools and are still adjusting to what it means to create meaningful boundaries between work and the other places in our life, so that's a new skill."
Indeed, the pressure is greater than ever, especially in the US, says Hendrie Weisinger, co-author with J.P. Pawliw-Fry of a forthcoming book, Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most.
Contributing factors include global competition, longevity, social media and materialistic values. Plus, he adds, there has been "a change from a manufacturing business culture, which emphasized production output, to a business culture that has become more interpersonally oriented, thus making one's success dependent on what others do. And you cannot control others."
If more work means more stress — and most experts say it does — it is spinning off some disturbing trends. For one thing, it's not helping productivity. Stressed workers are less engaged, exhibit higher absenteeism and are generally less productive, according to a recent Towers Watson survey of 22,347 employees in 12 countries, including the U.S.
More than half of the respondents cited inadequate staffing as the major cause of stress. A more grim consequence of pressure in the corporate workplace may be playing out. A spate of suicides has gripped the attention of the corporate realm this year: two top executives at telecom and insurance firms in Switzerland, a JPMorgan banker in Hong Kong and another in London.
At French telecom company Orange this year, 10 workers have taken their lives, most for job-related reasons, according to the company. But it is far from clear that suicide is up more in the C-suite than in other workplaces.
Doctors in the US, farmers in India, college students in South Korea, professional athletes —many groups are being isolated and examined for a relationship between extreme stress and suicide, and so whether the wave of corporate suicides is significant, statistically speaking, depends in part on how the numbers are parsed. Some interpret them as only the most visible sign of increased workplace stress, and Friedman thinks the problem is acute.
"Most people at the highest profile companies are still running marathons at a sprint pace and they don't see a way out," he says. "There is a sense that there is no time to breathe, the pressure is too intense. In talking to a number of major companies, it seems there is a desperate need and a real search for answers, which is hugely important."
"Anything in the work environment that is going to frustrate motivation or people's ability to get their work done, in particular in ways they feel are unfair or in which they have no control, will lead to the negative emotions that cause stress," says Wharton management professor Sigal Barsade. "One of the things that is so insidious about it being contagious is that people almost never know it is going on. When they catch the emotion from the other person, they own it, and they really think they are stressed. It's not, 'my co-worker is stressed, I feel for her'; they feel they are stressed, too. You can transfer more stress and fear across a group than it would otherwise feel."
Like other things that are contagious, stress is also not healthy. Scientists believe chronic stress reduces the body's production of telomerase, a protective enzyme that helps to rebuild the protective casing at the end of a DNA strand.
With less telomerase, cells are more likely to die, and set off the body's aging process and associated health problems. "From a health care perspective, stress is bad for business and bad for the economy," says Friedman. "And it's bad for our social bonds. When people feel resentment and strain, the physical and psychological problems are disabling. The most obvious problem for most businesses is retention — people quit. It's definitely happening."
Global competition, downsizing and the constant state of being electronically tethered to the office are combining to create a perhaps unprecedented level of stress. "Absolutely, there is no question about that," says Professor Stewart Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project.
"If you look at the span of the last 50 years, we know people are working more, that more of their waking attention is devoted to work and work-related decisions, and it's a challenge because the ubiquity of technology has enabled 24/7 communication. For most of us, we didn't grow up with these tools and are still adjusting to what it means to create meaningful boundaries between work and the other places in our life, so that's a new skill."
Indeed, the pressure is greater than ever, especially in the US, says Hendrie Weisinger, co-author with J.P. Pawliw-Fry of a forthcoming book, Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most.
Contributing factors include global competition, longevity, social media and materialistic values. Plus, he adds, there has been "a change from a manufacturing business culture, which emphasized production output, to a business culture that has become more interpersonally oriented, thus making one's success dependent on what others do. And you cannot control others."
If more work means more stress — and most experts say it does — it is spinning off some disturbing trends. For one thing, it's not helping productivity. Stressed workers are less engaged, exhibit higher absenteeism and are generally less productive, according to a recent Towers Watson survey of 22,347 employees in 12 countries, including the U.S.
More than half of the respondents cited inadequate staffing as the major cause of stress. A more grim consequence of pressure in the corporate workplace may be playing out. A spate of suicides has gripped the attention of the corporate realm this year: two top executives at telecom and insurance firms in Switzerland, a JPMorgan banker in Hong Kong and another in London.
At French telecom company Orange this year, 10 workers have taken their lives, most for job-related reasons, according to the company. But it is far from clear that suicide is up more in the C-suite than in other workplaces.
Doctors in the US, farmers in India, college students in South Korea, professional athletes —many groups are being isolated and examined for a relationship between extreme stress and suicide, and so whether the wave of corporate suicides is significant, statistically speaking, depends in part on how the numbers are parsed. Some interpret them as only the most visible sign of increased workplace stress, and Friedman thinks the problem is acute.
"Most people at the highest profile companies are still running marathons at a sprint pace and they don't see a way out," he says. "There is a sense that there is no time to breathe, the pressure is too intense. In talking to a number of major companies, it seems there is a desperate need and a real search for answers, which is hugely important."
"Anything in the work environment that is going to frustrate motivation or people's ability to get their work done, in particular in ways they feel are unfair or in which they have no control, will lead to the negative emotions that cause stress," says Wharton management professor Sigal Barsade. "One of the things that is so insidious about it being contagious is that people almost never know it is going on. When they catch the emotion from the other person, they own it, and they really think they are stressed. It's not, 'my co-worker is stressed, I feel for her'; they feel they are stressed, too. You can transfer more stress and fear across a group than it would otherwise feel."
Like other things that are contagious, stress is also not healthy. Scientists believe chronic stress reduces the body's production of telomerase, a protective enzyme that helps to rebuild the protective casing at the end of a DNA strand.
With less telomerase, cells are more likely to die, and set off the body's aging process and associated health problems. "From a health care perspective, stress is bad for business and bad for the economy," says Friedman. "And it's bad for our social bonds. When people feel resentment and strain, the physical and psychological problems are disabling. The most obvious problem for most businesses is retention — people quit. It's definitely happening."
Stress
has a demonstratively uneasy relationship with productivity. Towers
Watson's 2014 global survey showed employee disengagement going up
with stress. Of those employees claiming high stress levels, 57 per
cent said they were disengaged.
In contrast, just 10 per cent with low stress levels said they were disengaged. Stressed employees took twice as many sick days as non-stressed ones. But what was particularly striking about the findings was the disconnect between what employees and managers perceived: Inadequate staffing was cited by 53 per cent of workers as the major reason for stress, while only 15 per cent of senior managers thought this was so.
A third of managers said that access to technology outside of working hours was a cause of stress, but workers disagreed, with only 8 per cent citing it. Wharton management professor Nancy Rothbard points to a 2014 study indicating that while use of smartphones before bed may seem like a form of keeping up, it may in fact be disturbing sleep and leading to disengagement and stress at work the next day.
The study's co-authors, Christopher M Barnes, Klodiana Lanaj and Russell Johnson, found that exposure to the melatonin-inhibiting blue light from smart phones after 9 pm disturbs sleep in ways TV does not. Rothbard allows that sometimes the pressure to stay connected comes from the employer — but often it doesn't. "I think there is a really important phenomenon going on here in terms of what we are doing to ourselves. There is an addictive quality to this, when we are obsessively checking this stuff all the time. We can go to a soccer game, but we are sitting there on a cell phone half the time. It is taking a toll on our ability to be fully present when we need to be."
Friedman suggests that the dynamics of the work-home equation are shifting toward a better balance, even in a tough job market. "Companies are expecting more, yes, but we are starting to see the pendulum being pushed back as more and more people are finding ways of inventing equal boundaries and finding purpose in their work and lives generally," says Friedman, author of Leading the Life You Want.
"One of the things we observed is that young people want a different deal, and that is changing the dynamics of the labor market, especially at the high end of the talent chain where the competition is intense and companies are trying to shift to give people greater control. It's a hard shift to make, though, because what has evolved in the past two decades is a culture of overwork and responsiveness 24/7."
Change would need to happen on several different levels, says Friedman. On the social-policy level, family and medical leave and support for childcare must be strengthened. At the organizational level, "it starts with focusing on results and giving people the freedom to pursue them in ways that work for their lives," he notes. "What are the results that matter most, and how can we do that? It may require trial and error. You can say, 'Here is what is important to me; what's important to you?' People are going to come up with solutions, and there will be increased commitment and loyalty."
Some companies have responded to workplace stress with perks like free food in open gathering spaces, gyms and onsite yoga. Some amenities, like meditation and exercise, have a measurable mitigating effect on stress. But others, while they can certainly lead to better moods and less stress, can also be inert or even backfire, depending on the culture, says Barsade.
"If employees aren't trustful of the organization or feel cynically, then those kinds of things are not necessarily going to be helpful, because employees either won't really appreciate it, or, worse, feel they are being given these things to make up for something bad going on in the organization," she notes. "You can't have a situation where you don't hire enough people to do the work, but there is free coffee and cookies at four. It has to be in an overall environment and broader culture of really caring about your people."
For their book, the authors of Performing Under Pressure undertook a multi-year study of 12,000 people under pressure, and concluded that the myth that people somehow perform better under pressure is just that — a myth.
The trick is that some people have learned how to mitigate the effects of pressure better than others, using coping mechanisms such as not becoming defensive in the face of criticism, staying focused on their own actions, remembering the power of confidence and enthusiasm, visualizing — even taking into account physiological factors like posture and blood sugar.
Weisinger draws a clear distinction between stress and pressure — the former being the intersection of too many demands and not enough resources, and the latter being a situation when something at stake depends on your performance. But if there is confusion about the nomenclature, there is also confusion in the workplace about just how much is really at stake on a normal, quotidian basis. And that creates stress.
According to Weisinger, managers often exaggerate the importance of a project or sales goal, and this spawns unnecessary anxiety. "It is counter-intuitive," he explains, "but by saying this is the only opportunity we're going to have, you are increasing the likelihood that the staff won't do their best. The real edge comes from teaching people how to deal with pressure. Pressure keeps a lot of talent under lock that is not being used. A lot of people don't volunteer good ideas because they don't want the pressure."
CDET141114
In contrast, just 10 per cent with low stress levels said they were disengaged. Stressed employees took twice as many sick days as non-stressed ones. But what was particularly striking about the findings was the disconnect between what employees and managers perceived: Inadequate staffing was cited by 53 per cent of workers as the major reason for stress, while only 15 per cent of senior managers thought this was so.
A third of managers said that access to technology outside of working hours was a cause of stress, but workers disagreed, with only 8 per cent citing it. Wharton management professor Nancy Rothbard points to a 2014 study indicating that while use of smartphones before bed may seem like a form of keeping up, it may in fact be disturbing sleep and leading to disengagement and stress at work the next day.
The study's co-authors, Christopher M Barnes, Klodiana Lanaj and Russell Johnson, found that exposure to the melatonin-inhibiting blue light from smart phones after 9 pm disturbs sleep in ways TV does not. Rothbard allows that sometimes the pressure to stay connected comes from the employer — but often it doesn't. "I think there is a really important phenomenon going on here in terms of what we are doing to ourselves. There is an addictive quality to this, when we are obsessively checking this stuff all the time. We can go to a soccer game, but we are sitting there on a cell phone half the time. It is taking a toll on our ability to be fully present when we need to be."
Friedman suggests that the dynamics of the work-home equation are shifting toward a better balance, even in a tough job market. "Companies are expecting more, yes, but we are starting to see the pendulum being pushed back as more and more people are finding ways of inventing equal boundaries and finding purpose in their work and lives generally," says Friedman, author of Leading the Life You Want.
"One of the things we observed is that young people want a different deal, and that is changing the dynamics of the labor market, especially at the high end of the talent chain where the competition is intense and companies are trying to shift to give people greater control. It's a hard shift to make, though, because what has evolved in the past two decades is a culture of overwork and responsiveness 24/7."
Change would need to happen on several different levels, says Friedman. On the social-policy level, family and medical leave and support for childcare must be strengthened. At the organizational level, "it starts with focusing on results and giving people the freedom to pursue them in ways that work for their lives," he notes. "What are the results that matter most, and how can we do that? It may require trial and error. You can say, 'Here is what is important to me; what's important to you?' People are going to come up with solutions, and there will be increased commitment and loyalty."
Some companies have responded to workplace stress with perks like free food in open gathering spaces, gyms and onsite yoga. Some amenities, like meditation and exercise, have a measurable mitigating effect on stress. But others, while they can certainly lead to better moods and less stress, can also be inert or even backfire, depending on the culture, says Barsade.
"If employees aren't trustful of the organization or feel cynically, then those kinds of things are not necessarily going to be helpful, because employees either won't really appreciate it, or, worse, feel they are being given these things to make up for something bad going on in the organization," she notes. "You can't have a situation where you don't hire enough people to do the work, but there is free coffee and cookies at four. It has to be in an overall environment and broader culture of really caring about your people."
For their book, the authors of Performing Under Pressure undertook a multi-year study of 12,000 people under pressure, and concluded that the myth that people somehow perform better under pressure is just that — a myth.
The trick is that some people have learned how to mitigate the effects of pressure better than others, using coping mechanisms such as not becoming defensive in the face of criticism, staying focused on their own actions, remembering the power of confidence and enthusiasm, visualizing — even taking into account physiological factors like posture and blood sugar.
Weisinger draws a clear distinction between stress and pressure — the former being the intersection of too many demands and not enough resources, and the latter being a situation when something at stake depends on your performance. But if there is confusion about the nomenclature, there is also confusion in the workplace about just how much is really at stake on a normal, quotidian basis. And that creates stress.
According to Weisinger, managers often exaggerate the importance of a project or sales goal, and this spawns unnecessary anxiety. "It is counter-intuitive," he explains, "but by saying this is the only opportunity we're going to have, you are increasing the likelihood that the staff won't do their best. The real edge comes from teaching people how to deal with pressure. Pressure keeps a lot of talent under lock that is not being used. A lot of people don't volunteer good ideas because they don't want the pressure."
CDET141114
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