Stress and the Elephant in the Middle of the Room

Far be it from me to want to turn away work that could put food on the table for my staff, but as wellness consultants we are often asked by clients to address issues stemming from workplace stress. Probably no one is surprised to hear that many Americans find work stressful:

An NIOSH report from the early 1990s cites the following:

• 40% of workers reported their job was very or extremely stressful;
• 25% view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives;
• 75% of employees believe that workers have more on-the-job stress than a generation ago;
• 29% of workers felt quite a bit or extremely stressed at work;
• 26% of workers said they were "often or very often burned out or stressed by their work."

The report goes on to quote an insurance company study that concluded "Problems at work are more strongly associated with health complaints than are any other life stressor-more so than even financial problems or family problems." Yikes.

Here's the freaky part, though. It gets worse. According to the American Institute of Stress an average of 20 workers are murdered each week in the U. S. making homicide the second highest cause of workplace deaths and the leading one for females. Many employees cite their or their co-workers increased job stress and lack of ability to cope with such stress with an increase in physical or verbal hostility in the workplace. 2 reports in 2000 compiled by Gallup and Integra revealed that:

• 14% of respondents had felt like striking a coworker in the past year, but didn't;
• 25% have felt like screaming or shouting because of job stress;
• 29% had yelled at co-workers because of workplace stress;
  
• 14% said they work where machinery or equipment has been damaged because of workplace rage
  
• 19% or almost one in five respondents had quit a previous position because of job stress and nearly one in four have been driven to tears because of workplace stress;
• 62% routinely find that they end the day with work-related neck pain;
• 34% reported difficulty in sleeping because they were too stressed-out;
• 12% had called in sick because of job stress;

Over half said they often spend 12-hour days on work related duties and an equal number frequently skip lunch because of the stress of job demands.

If you can pick even three of these items and you feel they adequately describe your working environment, there is no amount of on-site yoga or wellness campaigns that can help. Your problem is systemic. That is not to say that yoga or corporate wellness can't help those employees who participate better cope with a stressful situation, but if you look around and see the signs of deteriorating health and humanity in your workplace chances are good you have bigger issues to address.

Where is this all coming from?
I reached out to professionals on facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and the blogosphere to ask what they saw as the biggest sources of workplace stress. Their answers seemed to echo two main themes:

Lack of clarity and discipline in work processes.

Typified by responses like this:

"This is related to employees who refuse to answer or even acknowledge emails. And, as a project manager, I'm held responsible for not having an answer. That's stressful for me."

"Process. Inefficient coordination that wastes time kills spirit. "


This includes: passive, unfocused or unclear communication or hierarchy among team members, lack of consensus or goals, poor accountability to project deadlines or deliverables, leading people to feel as though they were constantly firefighting rather than working effectively and productively.

- or -

Lack of empathy and understanding.

Typified by responses like this:

"Unreasonable expectations. Often of the, "I want an answer today!" type, when the standard timeline is several days."

"When everyone needs everything RIGHT NOW. Clients don't care that you have other projects or other clients."

"Treating everything as an emergency, as a top priority, while less urgent items are ignored to become tomorrows' emergencies. "

When coworkers or clients not taking time to define their own goals and understand project and time constraints, the ensuing lack of clarity in communication seems to drive people nuts. We can probably all recall a project fraught with: interrupting, introduction of scope creep, lack of respect for other organizational priorities, dropped balls which result in blaming and deviceiveness among team members, leading to micromanagement and disrespect for co-workers' expertise.

How do we stop this train wreck from happening?
So here is the interesting part for me. Nope, wellness alone won't fix the underlying problems. This is something that even we have to grapple with as a wellness company. Perhaps the best advice we've had to offer in this arena is our own example. There is a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh that is displayed prominently in our office and included in every employee orientation at Recess.

"Our own life has to be our message."

Easier said than done. Especially if everyone at your company is communicating a different message. Getting everyone on the same page, unifying around a vision, mission, set of values and ways of doing business is hard work. It means that at every level of the organization people need to be given time to work on the business as well as in the business and that all new hires, client acquisitions and business decisions must be constantly evaluated through this lens.

Cameron Herold was COO at 1-800-GOT-JUNK? His leadership helped build a presence in 46 states, 9 provinces, and 4 countries while being ranked the “2nd Best Company to Work for in Canada” by Canadian Business Magazine and “the #1 Company in BC to Work for” twice by BC Business Magazine. During his tenure the company was studied by numerous MBA programs including Queen’s University in Canada & Harvard. Here's Cameron (please note, no subtitles provided for his Canadian accent):



He articulates in his talks the need for a broad and all encompassing vision that is then executed through a series of well orchestrated and disciplined internal processes and plans. Take a look at how that vision trickles down on a daily basis:



Even before starting Recess, I worked as a management consultant. When I showed up on client site I'd see everyone running around frantically, firing off emails after email, powering through lunch, working long days on projects that still never seemed to be done "right" or on time. The company that I worked for advocated a long painful process whereby clients aligned their work habits with long range planning and resource allocation and right sized their organizations rather than simply grabbing anyone breathing (only to leave a firing bloodbath once sales dried up).

I saw over and over that trying to implement suggestions like Cameron's can be difficult once organizational problems are endemic; however, doing so is probably the best way for an organization to achieve rapid business growth without churning and burning the exceptional employees and clients it worked so hard to find.

If you really want to eliminate workplace stress then:

1. Define long term, mid term and short term goals based on vision.
2. Create systems that balance the skills, talents and availability of your workforce with a realistic plan for achieving your goals. This provides a basis for communicating your vision in a meaningful way to every person in your organization.
3. Manage the process. Track. Measure. Create structured and regular opportunities for employees to report on milestones, then get out of their way.
4. Of course the last bullet requires that you hire capable people who value your mission. Weed out employees, managers and clients who don't get it. Bad apples are like entropy inducing kryptonite for even the best run companies.

So while I don't want to discount the benefit that yoga and good health have on well being (after all I would be out of a job if that were the case), companies that wish to lessen the impact of stress should start by doing the difficult systemic work necessary to create a humane work culture. Culture isn't something you can get through a workplace personalysis or a ropes course. Best management practices improve your company's bottom line and make work a more predictable, reliable and sane place for the people that keep your organization afloat.