What Reaction Do Employees Have to Organizational Change?

  1. 6-3 Describe what managers need to know about employee stress.

Photo shows a man dressed in a business suit sitting with his head in his hands, suggestive of being in stress.

Yuri Arcurs/Alamy

Employee Stress Levels in Six Major Economies24
Photo of the flag of the United Kingdom. United Kingdom 35% of employees
Photo of the flag of Brazil. Brazil 34% of employees
Photo of the German flag. Germany 33% of employees
Photo of the flag of the United States of America. United States 32% of employees
An icon representing a globe. GLOBAL AVERAGE 29% of employees
Photo of the Chinese flag. China 17% of employees
Photo of the Indian flag. India 17% of employees

1 What Is Stress?

  • Stress—response to anxiety over intense demands, constraints, or opportunities.25, 26

  • Not always bad; can be positive, especially when there’s potential gain.

    • — Functional stress—allows a person to perform at his or her highest level at crucial times.

  • Often associated with constraints (an obstacle that prevents you from doing what you desire), demands (the loss of something desired), and opportunities (the possibility of something new, something never done).

    Examples: Taking a test or having your annual work performance review.

  • Even if conditions may be right for stress to surface, that doesn’t mean it will.

  • How do you know when you’re stressed? See the symptoms listed in Exhibit 6-3.

    Exhibit 6–3

    Symptoms of Stress

    A figure presents details on the symptoms of stress.

    Too much stress can also have tragic consequences. In Japan, there’s a stress phenomenon called karoshi (pronounced kah-roe-she), which is translated as death from overwork. To combat this problem, companies in Japan are trying creative ways to encourage their employees from working too many hours.27

2 What Causes Stress? Stressors

Job-related factors:

  • Examples: Pressures to avoid errors or complete tasks in a limited time period; changes in the way reports are filed; a demanding supervisor; unpleasant coworkers

  1. 1 Task demands: Stress due to an employee’s job—job design (autonomy, task variety, degree of automation); working conditions (temperature, noise, etc.); physical work layout (overcrowded or in visible location with constant interruptions); work quotas, especially when excessive;29 high level of task interdependence with others.

  2. 2 Role demands: Stress due to employee’s particular role.

    • Role conflicts: expectations that may be hard to reconcile or satisfy.

    • Role overload: created when employee is expected to do more than time permits.

    • Role ambiguity: created when role expectations are not clearly understood–employee not sure what he or she is to do.

  3. 3Interpersonal demands: Stress due to other employees—little or no social support from colleagues; poor interpersonal relationships.

  4. 4 Organization structure: Stress due to excessive rules; no opportunity to participate in decisions that affect an employee.

  5. 5 Organizational leadership: Stress due to managers’ supervisory style in a culture of tension, fear, anxiety, unrealistic pressures to perform in the short run, excessively tight controls, and routine firing of employees who don’t measure up.

Personal factors

Life demands, constraints, opportunities of any kind

  1. 1 Family issues, personal economic problems, and so forth.

    • Can’t just ignore! Managers need to be understanding of these personal factors.30

  2. 2 Employees’ personalities —Type A or Type B.

    • Type A personality—chronic sense of time urgency, excessive competitive drive, and difficulty accepting and enjoying leisure time; more likely to shows symptoms of stress.

    • Type B personality—little to no sense of time urgency or impatience.

    • Stress comes from the hostility and anger associated with Type A behavior. Surprisingly, though, Type Bs are just as susceptible.

      Photo of a man wearing trousers, a business shirt, and necktie, sitting cross-legged while meditating.

      Beyond Fotomedia GmbH/Alamy

How Can Stress Be Managed?

  1. 1 General guidelines:

    • Stress can never be totally eliminated!

    • Not all stress is dysfunctional.

    • Reduce dysfunctional stress by controlling job-related factors and offering help for personal stress.

  2. 2 Job-related factors:

    • Employee selection—provide a realistic job preview and make sure an employee’s abilities match the job requirements.

      Photo shows several flat stones stacked one on top of another.

      1bestofphoto/Alamy

    • On-the-job—improve organizational communications to minimize ambiguity; use a performance planning program such as MBO to clarify job responsibilities, provide clear performance goals, and reduce ambiguity through feedback; redesign job, if possible, especially if stress can be traced to boredom (increase challenge) or to work overload (reduce the workload); allow employees to participate in decisions and to gain social support, which also lessen stress.31

  3. 3 Personal factors:

    • Not easy for manager to control directly

    • Ethical considerations

    • If the manager believes it’s ethical and the employee is receptive, consider employee assistance and wellness programs,32 which are designed to assist employees in areas where they might be having difficulties (financial planning, legal matters, health, fitness, or stress).33

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