By
Amy Scholten, M.P.H
It can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, immune system dysfunction, and musculoskeletal disorders such as chronic back, neck and shoulder pain. Evidence suggests it plays a role in the increasing rates of overweight and obesity, asthma, gastrointestinal problems, anxiety and depression, skin disorders, headaches, migraines, autoimmune diseases, and more.
And it exists in the vast majority of American workplaces without being adequately acknowledged or addressed.
What is it?
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Stress... and it has become a chronic workplace health hazard.
The Price of Working in a Fast-paced, Rapidly-changing Global Economy
Why so much stress? In today's fast-paced, rapidly changing world, many organizations, feeling the strain of intense competition and tight budgets, are trying to "do more with less," but often unwittingly at the expense of their employees' physical and mental health. Work stress doesn't just take a heavy toll on employees. It hurts everyone: families, society, and especially the organizations that are heaping chronic stress on their workers.
Common Sources of Workplace Stress
Common sources of workplace stress include:
Overload
According to Christina Maslach and Michael Leitner, authors of The Truth About Burnout, overload is the combination of intensity, complexity and overwork. It is the most common stressful situation in today's workplace because:
- Organizations are using too few employees to do too much work, resulting in an intense pace.
- Work itself has become more complex.
- Employees are being asked to take on multiple roles and adapt to rapid changes.
- Long work hours have become more commonplace.
As a result, overloaded employees have less recovery time and less time and energy to take care of themselves, their families and communities.
Lack of Control
Employees increasingly feel a lack control over their workloads, tasks, working environment, and future employment.
Environmental Factors
Any number of environmental factors such as noise, crowding, ergonomic problems, unsafe working conditions, and long commutes can increase work stress.
Reduced Reward
People seek rewards for their work—money, security, recognition, and satisfaction. Unfortunately, for many employees today, the work scenario involves increased demands with reduced rewards—intense workdays but less job security and fewer raises and benefits.
Loss of Community
Social support and a sense of community—integral to the health of people and organizations—is increasingly undermined by intense demands, rapid change, competitive attitudes, high turnover, and loss of job security.
Myopic Focus on Budgets and Short-term Profits
A focus on budgets and short-term profits rather than a commitment to employees and customers fuels loss of trust and respect, conflicting values, and poor communication and service, all of which increase employee stress.
Design of Tasks
Task design frequently causes stress. Examples include:
- Infrequent rest breaks
- Sitting for long periods of time
- Shiftwork
- Routine tasks that provide little meaning and do not utilize employees' skills
Personalities Under Stress
Chronic stress tends to bring out the worst in people. Putting a group of stressed people together in a work situation often increases conflict and the overall level of stress.
Chronically Elevated Stress Hormones: Toxic Workplace Chemicals
The American Institute of Stress—a 30-year-old organization founded by Hans Selye and other prominent physicians and public health researchers—describes stress as "America's number one health problem." Yet despite other health protective policies in the workplace such as strict safety regulations and nonsmoking policies, work stress isn't taken as seriously in the United States.
On March 5, 2008, public health physicians and researchers gathered in Washington, D.C. for the Global Health Initiative (Global Epidemics: The Contribution of Work) to present their research on globalization and work stress. They concluded that:
- Exposure to chronic stress at work has a cumulative impact and can lead to physical and mental illness.
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Work conditions that breed chronic stress include:
- Long work hours
- Employment insecurity
- Precarious employment (increased contract and temporary work, with few benefits)
- Dangerous work environments
- Noxious psychosocial work environments
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Incidence of heart disease and hypertension parallel the transformation of work from agricultural and relatively automonous craft-based work to machine-based (including computer-based) work. This transformation has increased workload demands, work hours, and reduced control and autonomy, resulting in job strain.
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Blood pressure is elevated during work hours. Job strain, long work hours, effort-reward imbalance, and threat-avoidant work have been proven to elevate blood pressure.
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By age 50, most U.S. employees suffer from at least one work-related illness including cardiovascular diease, work-related mental health conditions, and musculoskeletal disorders.
Chronic Work Stress Creates an Unwell Society
Chronic work stress creates an unwell society. Overworked and exhausted employees are:
- more prone to illness and injury
- more dependent on unhealthful convenience foods
- more apt to cut exercise out of their overloaded schedules
- less apt to get a good night's sleep
- more inclined to overeat, smoke, or use alcohol or drugs as quick-fix coping strategies
Chronic work stress doesn't just hurt employees—it often hurts marriages, families, communities, and the larger society. It contributes to lack of quality time with loved ones and—in some cases—contributes to the neglect of children, elders, and pets.
Organizations Pay a High Price for Employee Stress
Organizations with stressed out employees are not exempt from this web of destruction. They often pay a high price with increasing rates of:
- Absenteeism
- Health care expenditures
- Performance problems
- Low morale
- Employee conflict
- Turnover
- Increased worker's compensation claims
- Grievances
- Lawsuits
- Workplace violence
- Poor service (which can lead to decreased business)
Photo courtesy of U.S.D.A.
It's obviously in the best interest of organizations to help contain employee stress as much as possible.
The Good News: Organizations Can Help Reduce Work Stress!
Many organizations think that they're doing their part to help reduce worker stress by using employee assistance programs (EAPs). According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), EAPs can help employees manage stress symptoms in the short-term, but because they tend to focus on the employee and not the environment, they often ignore important root causes of stress.
So what should an organization do? Here are some tips:
- Even if your employees seem okay and don't complain, they may still be suffering from work stress. Don't dismiss the importance of a prevention program.
- If you already have an EAP or stress management program, be aware that a combination of stress managment and organizational change is often the most useful approach for preventing stress at work.
- Remember that you have the ability and resources to do a great deal to help reduce job stress and burnout.
- Seek employees' imput and involvement in the assessment and remediation of workplace stressors.
- Consider hiring an outside consultant to help you:
- assess and define specific causes of job-related stress in your organization
- design and implement a job stress intervention
- conduct both short and long term evaluations and refine your job stress intervention as needed on an ongoing basis
Putting the Responsibility Where It Belongs
Should organizations be held responsible for all of their employees' stress? Of course not. Not all employee stress is generated by the workplace. And employees need to take responsibility for decisions they make that add to their stress too. For example, it's not an employer's fault if someone chooses to gamble, eat too many twinkies, or spend excessive amounts of money on an expensive car.
However, work stress is a growing fact of modern life and can have serious and even life-threatening consequences. It's in the best interest of our whole society to address this public health epidemic NOW.
Amy Scholten, MPH, is a personal wellness coach, president of Inner Medicine Publishing, and author of the booklet You Can't Afford Employee Stress! How to Reduce Job Stress, a Costly Work and Public Health Epidemic.
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Sources:
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
Maslach, Christina, and Leiter, Michael, The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Peronsal Stress and What to Do About It, Jossey-Bass 1997
Schnall, Peter, MD, MPH, Lansbergis, Paul, Ph.D, MPH, Dobson, Marnie, Ph.D, Rosskam, Ellen, Ph.D, MPH, Global Epidemics: The Contribution of Work, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Global Health Inititaive, Washington, DC, March 8, 2008
The American Institute of Stress
The Job Stress Network
