This case study shows what organizations do to reduce its employee's
stress levels, by first defining and describing what stress is, in its various
forms, there are problems associated with stress for all involved, be it for
the employees, the organizations, employee's families et cetra. There have been
quantifiable results from the different organizations' activities to eliminate
stress. Included are recommendations to further aid in eradicating stress.
What are the primary reasons why many employees are experiencing high levels of stress at work nowadays? Identify and describe these reasons.
Stress is a not a normal state of being, it may be due to a strain,
demanding and/or adverse events, it can have both mental and emotional symptoms
then become physical in manifestations. Despite its negative effects,
surprisingly stress is quite common nowadays in the workplace. Stress can be
induced by several factors anxiety over job security, familial situations,
workplace interpersonal relations (for example; a difficult boss, uncooperative
colleagues and insubordinate associates), health, economic situation, global
events, financial matters, downsizing (the corollary of which are increased job
responsibility/workload) "high performance work cultures" (Gibson,
Donnelly, Ivancevich & Konopaske, 2012) and so on. Stress in an employee
highly impacts output in many cases leading to lower function levels and less
achievement, even eventual absenteeism due to reduced job satisfaction and
lower motivation.
For the organization with high-stress environment, this leads to higher
employee turn-over rates, more spending on the recruitment of replacements and
training of said replacements, though if the stress-inducing environment
persists in the organization, the cycle continues with the new replacements.
The onus is on the organization to nip it inn the bud, through it's management.
It is worthy to note that a workaday level of stress is functional as it drives
the employee to push himself further than he usually would to achieve set
task(s).
2,. Why do many of the survivors of layoffs experience stress?
Conventional wisdom would suggest that these employees should be happy that
they didn’t get laid off. Explain your answer.
A significant source of workplace stress is P.T.S.D. in the remaining
employees (fear of being next on the layoff list) in an organization that just
laid off,
In scores of cases of layoffs, certain actions of the management leaves
the employees unhappy that is:
A. the proceeding is often not
well handled for example the indicators for a spending reduction is often seen
early but acted upon late hence creating a hurried staff-redundancy process.
B. Organizations often cover up
the situation either to try to save jobs (to avoid looking financial trouble)
then in an eventuality of layoffs, the organization creates a "good
news" announcement as a distraction (McKenna, 2009),
C. Organizations often act as
if the layoffs did not happen.
D. Management erroneously start
to try to spread a cherry atmosphere when employees are still coming to terms
with the layoffs.
despite the management's expected reaction of relief in remaining
employees, for not being laid off employees still go through a change of
attitude, motivation levels et cetra
After the global financial recession of 2007, the banking industry which
had the top most secured jobs in the labor industry suddenly had to let people
go as they were not making even close to it's previous revenue hence it was
downsizing or to use correct lingo "right sizing". This led to a lot
of bankers voluntarily leaving for other industries.
Some of the ways to better handle layoffs are to do it the layoff
process should be handled by trained professionals (before, during and after),
counselling should be made available if not mandatory then with
incentive for remaining staff after layoff, this provides a safe outlet
for them, organization can use the E.A.P.
Due to loss of trust as a result of lay off, more needs to be done to
reassure the remaining staff of the organizations continued focus on their
welfare. Plan to give employees grieving time. provide open doors for
questions from employees not laid off, give extra attention to your top
performers to ensure you retain them,
3., What are companies doing to decrease the stress levels of their
employees? To what degree do you think that these steps will help them retain
valued employees?
The aim of the organization's management is to eliminate above
"moderate" level stress, in employees in order to better staff
health, staff welfare, reduce organization's cost/spending plus increase or
normalize retention rates. Various organizations have taken different steps to
fight workplace stress, for example organizations partaking in the Employee
Assistance Program have seen certain improvements in the overall health of
employees, reduction in stress-induced problems, more man-hours extricated from
less sick time et cetra with focus on helping substance abuse & addiction
which metamorphosed into psych care of employees, then extended to
personal finance management; companies like IBM, Schools, Google and so on.
Amazon also includes in the EAP benefits extending to family-members of
employees on legal, financial, personal and such matters. Another form of
stress combating done by organizations is the Wellness program, its focus is
mental and physical health of employees. An example is Google's stocking of 8
inch plates beside 12 inch ones to encourage staff eating small portions. Piala
Inc. a Japanese company, in it's response from non-smoking staff complaint
about their smoking colleagues' 15 mins-paid-smoking-breaking, gave six extra
vacation days yearly to non-smokers. This move by Piala not only reduced stress
of the disgruntled non-smoking workforce but probably also inspired healthier
choices in its smoking demography. To quote the CEO Takei
“I hope to encourage employees to
quit smoking through incentives, rather than penalties or coercion” (Huffington
Post, 2017).
In my personal experience with ZTE (telco firm) in Nigeria, we had two
hours, thirty minutes break daily and a nap room to boot. And for those whose
break coincides with an appointment out side the office, a thirty-five dollar
equivalent spending will be reimbursed to them for however many days these
occur. When I asked one of the HR execs, she said it is due to the strain of
the type of work we do, a kind of ensuring welfare of staff. In our
Headquarters in China, the office space and sitting was arranged in such a way
that one could pull out their collapsible camp-bed during the two hours, thirty
minutes break and have a power nap under one’s desk.
Five years ago Google, increased the length of its maternal leave
allowance, this was done to stem the observed increase in employee turn over
and it worked by fifty percent (Manjoo, 2013), although there were no lay offs,
Google’s action can be replicated for remaining staff after lay offs, there are
other perks like non-monetary ones that make employee feel the organization
still cares. Offering in-house managerial training to top performers in the
middle management to give them a sense of increased responsibility. Creation of
an anonymous complaint box, this would give management a guide as to the
current state of mind of the employees.
As work and non-work stress are intertwined, organizations should find
ways to help employees relieve non-work stress for instance in MTNN, new
fathers are given paternal leave in the early days of the baby’s life, because
such people would probably have had little sleep at night due to the new baby
crying and he will be unable to function optimally at work the anyway, so above average industry number of leave
days will reduce stress and in turn revamp the trust for the organization that
was previously lost after the layoffs.
Many companies are on the right track with various things being put in
place as studies into work and non-work stress has increased exponentially in
the past few years.
References
Manjoo F. (2013, January 21st). The Happiness Machine, How Google Became
A Great Place To Work. Retreived article from http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/01/google_people_operations_the_secrets_of_the_world_s_most_scientific_human.html
Gibson J.L., Donnelly J.H. et al. 2012, Organizations Behaviours,
Structures, Processes. 14 Pp 194-222
Nielsen N.S. (2011) Organisational Communication to Survivors of
Layoffs. Bachelor Thesis Spring Pp 6-30
Mckenna
P. J. (2009). Handling The Trauma of Layoffs, Pp 1-9 Retrieved from www.patrickmckenna.com/layoffs
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