9.9 Stress
Another concern of Health and Safety is mental health and the stress that employees experience.
Job insecurity is a concern related to stress. Higher education levels lends itself to more job security that includes higher wages, benefits and pension plans. However, lower waged jobs have less job security. These workers are often contract workers, part time workers, seasonal workers or freelance workers. More than half of these groups reported “….their income varied significantly, and 60 percent said they don’t have pension plans or sick pay.” (Mojtehedzadeh, 2018, para. 2). However, professional careers are also facing job insecurity. These jobs require special skills and higher education. Yet, face challenging situations with less pay, fewer benefits, and no pensions. Job insecurity causes stress about uncertainty and has affects on people’s health.
Before we discuss what HR professionals can do, let’s discuss some basic information about stress. As it is currently used, the term stress was coined by Hans Selye in 1936, who defined it as “the nonspecific response of the body to any demand for change” (The American Institute of Stress, 2011).
In other words, we can say that stress is the reaction we have to a stressor. A stressor is some activity, event, or other stimulus that causes either a positive or negative reaction in the body. Despite what people may think, some stress is actually good. For example, receiving a promotion at work may cause stress, but this kind of stress is considered to be positive. Stress is very much a personal thing, and depending on individual personalities, people may have different opinions about what is a stressor and what is not.
For example, a professor does not normally find public speaking to be a stressor, while someone who does not do it on a daily basis may be very stressed about having to speak in public.
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Stress Management
Selye recognized that not all stress is negative. Positive stress is called eustress. This type of stress is healthy and gives a feeling of fulfillment and other positive feelings. Eustress can cause us to push ourselves harder to meet an end goal. On the other hand, distress is the term used for negative stress. While eustress can push us, distress does not produce positive feelings and can go on for a long time without relief. We can further classify distress into chronic stress, is prolonged exposure to stress, and acute stress, which is short-term high stress. For example, someone who receives little or no positive result from stress and is continuously stressed may experience chronic stress. Acute stress occurs in shorter bursts and may be experienced while someone is on a tight deadline for a project.
Two other terms related to stress are hyperstress and hypostress. Hyperstress is a type of stress in which there are extremes with little or no relief for a long period of time. This type of stress often results in burnout. Hypostress is the lack of eustress or distress in someone’s life. Remember, some stress can be good and pushes us to work harder. We see this type of stress with people who may work in a factory or other type of repetitive job. The effect of this type of stress is usually feelings of restlessness.
One last important thing to note is how a person goes through the cycle of stress. Figure 9.9.1 “The Stress Curve” shows an example of how stress is good up to a point, but beyond that point, the person is fatigued and negatively affected by the stress. Bear in mind, this varies from person to person based on personality type and stress-coping mechanisms.
As you have already guessed, stress on the job creates productivity issues, which is why it concerns HR professionals. We know that stress can cause headaches, stomach issues, and other negative effects that can result in lost productivity but also result in less creative work. Stress can raise health insurance costs and cause employee turnover. With this information, steps can be taken to reduce or eliminate such stress.
The organization also requires employees to take vacation time and even promotes it with posters throughout the office. In fact, even weekends are precious at Price Waterhouse Coopers. If an employee sends an e-mail on the weekend, a popup screen reminds her or him it is the weekend and it is time to disconnect.
Offering flex-time is also a way to reduce employee stress. It allows employees to arrange their work and family schedule to one that reduces stress for them. Other creative ways to reduce stress might be to offer concierge services, on-site child care, wellness initiatives, and massage therapy. All these options can garner loyalty and higher productivity from employees.
Being a Student Can Be Very Stressful
Here are the most common stressors for college students:
- Death of a loved one; Relocating to a new city or province; Divorce of parents; Encounter with the legal system; Transfer to a new school; Marriage; Lost job; Elected to leadership position; New romantic relationship; Serious argument with close friend; Increase in course load or difficulty of courses; Change in health of family member; First semester in college; Failed important course; Major personal injury or illness; Change in living conditions; Argument with instructor; Change in social life; Change in sleeping habits; Lower grades than expected; Breakup of relationship; New job; Financial problems; Change in eating habits; Chronic car trouble; Pregnancy; Too many missed classes; Long commute to work/school; Working more than one job; Impending graduation; Argument with family member; Sexual concerns; Changes in alcohol and/or drug use; Roommate problems; Raising children
Workplace Violence and Bullying
Approximately 2 million American workers are victims of workplace violence every year (Occupational Safety and Health Administration, n.d.).
Workplace bullying is defined as a tendency of individuals or groups to use persistent or repeated aggressive or unreasonable behaviour against a coworker or subordinate. The Workplace Bullying Institute found that 35 percent of workers have reported being bullied at work. This number is worth considering, given that workplace bullying reduces productivity with missed work days and turnover. Examples of workplace bullying include the following:
- Unwarranted or invalid criticism
- Blame without factual information
- Being treated differently than the rest of your work group
- Humiliation
- Unrealistic work deadlines
- Spreading rumours
- Undermining or deliberately impeding a person’s work
There is a term that called Lateral Violence which is prominent in First Nation communities. This is often seen in small communities where everyone knows each other. To review an scenario see the website by Indigenous Corporate Training on Lateral Violence in the Workplace. The Native Women’s Association of Canada also has a resource on Lateral Violence.
Closer to home, according to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (2016):
- 1 in 5 Canadians experience a psychological health problem or illness in any given year.
- Psychological health problems and illnesses are the number one cause of disability in Canada.
- Psychological health problems cost the Canadian economy ~$51 billion per year, $20 billion of which results from work-related causes.
- 47% of working Canadians consider their work to be the most stressful part of daily life.
- Psychological health problems affect mid-career workers the most, lowering the productivity of the Canadian workforce.
- Only 23% of Canadian workers would feel comfortable talking to their employer about a psychological health issue.
It is up to the organization and human resources to implement policies to ensure the safety of workers and provide a safe working environment. Prevention of workplace bullying means creating a culture in which employees are comfortable speaking with HR professionals and managers (assuming they are not the ones bullying) about these types of situations.
Similar to traditional bullying, cyberbullying is defined as use of the Internet or technology used to send text that is intended to hurt or embarrass another person. Examples include using Facebook to post negative comments or setting up a fake e-mail account to send out fake e-mails from that person. Comments or blogs and posts that show the victim in a bad light are other examples of cyberbullying. Similar to workplace bullying, cyberbullying is about power and control in workplace relationships. Elizabeth Carll’s research on cyberbullying shows that people who experience this type of harassment are more likely to experience heightened anxiety, fear, shock, and helplessness, which can result in lost productivity at work and retention issues (White, 2011), a major concern for the HR professional.
Employee Privacy
In today’s world of identity theft, it is important that HR professionals work to achieve maximum security and privacy for employees. When private information is exposed, it can be costly.
Employee privacy is governed by the Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documents Act (PIPEDA) in Canada.
Some of the things to combat employee identity theft include the following:
- Conduct background and criminal checks on employees who will have access to sensitive data.
- Restrict access to areas where data is stored, including computers.
- Provide training to staff who will have access to private employee information.
- Keep information in locked files or in password-protected files.
- Use numbers other than social security numbers to identify employees.
Another privacy issue that comes up often is the monitoring of employee activities on devices that are provided to them by the organization. Case law, for the most part, has decided that employees do not have privacy rights if they are using the organization’s equipment, with a few exceptions. As a result, more than half of all companies engage in some kind of monitoring. According to an American Management Association (2007) survey, 73 percent of employers monitor e-mail messages and 66 percent monitor web surfing. If your organization finds it necessary to implement monitoring policies, ensuring the following is important to employee buy-in of the monitoring:
- Develop a policy for monitoring.
- Communicate what will be monitored.
- Provide business reasons for why e-mail and Internet must be monitored.
Working with your IT department to implement standards and protect employee data kept on computers is a must in today’s connected world. Communication of a privacy policy is an important step as well.
“Health Hazards at Work” from Human Resources Management – 2nd Ontario Edition by Elizabeth Cameron is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
