Managing Stress in the Workplace

1. Managing Stress in Public/Nonpublic Sectors
 Organizational Stress
 Working in public service fields is known to be very stressful for a plethora of reasons.
Difficult decisions need to be made regarding the welfare of children, education, the
environment, and health care to name a few.
 Hans Seyle, the ‘father’ of stress research described it as “the nonspecific response of
the body to any demand made upon it.”
 Key is to manage stress in both personal and public life.
 Use stress as a motivational tool. Prevent stress as a destructive force.

2. Where to Begin?
 Symptoms of Stress:
 Dry mouth
 Heart beating too fast or irregularly
 Hurried or shallow breath
 Backaches and tense muscles
 Headache
 Anxiety and tension
 Upset stomach
Holmes and Rahe developed a stress inventory ranking life events that can bring stress to
people’s lives, providing a mean value for each. Events that rank very high are death of a
spouse, divorce, marital separation, jail term, and death of a close family member. Events
that have a low rating include change in eating habits, vacation, religious holiday
celebrations, and minor violations of the law. According to Holmes and Rahe the higher
your mean score, the more likely you will experience physical or mental health problems
from the stress.

3. Sources of Stress
 A variety of events can cause stress in your life. What ongoing stress do you
experience at work? Examples include:
 Too much work
 Irate citizens
 Tasks are boring
 Too many objectives to handle at once
 Difficulty of the work
 Not enough training
 Too many hours
 To what degree do the events cause stress for your job? It is important to realize and
understand the things that cause the most stress each day. Are there common themes
among those items? Understanding those themes will help you to decide how to cope
with stress.

4. Coping with Stress
 How do you cope with stress?
 Skipping meals
 Talking with friends
 Getting angry
 Crying
 Problem solving
 Confronting those responsible
 Coping mechanisms for stress include emotional, problem solving, manage and
control time, and coping with physical symptoms.
 Setting priorities, problem solving, and confronting those responsible of the stress are
examples of problem solving techniques. Talking with friends, getting angry, or crying
are viewed as emotional coping strategies. Increasing alcohol use, eating healthier,
and exercising more are examples of attempts to cope with physical symptoms of
stress.

5. Costs of Stress
 More than 10 million American workers suffer from problems related to stress.
 Problems include smoking, alcohol use, drug use, and obesity. When people are under
extreme stress they tend to behave irritably, impatient, and withdrawn.
 Stress can cause people to become frustrated at work, hurry, and make errors. Those
who work in public service have large responsibilities of caring for people, protecting
them, their communities, and responding to emergencies. The costs of stress can be
very serious.
 Productivity can decrease at work when employees are under too much stress. More
than 70% of absenteeism is related to stress.

6. Stress Is Good Too?
 A little stress can help with motivation and drive in the workplace.
 Healthy stress is known as ‘eustress’- experienced positively, has constructive
outcomes.
 Yerkes-Dodson Law- correlation between performance and arousal is depicted as an
inverted U. If stress is too low, performance will suffer, boredom occurs.
 As stress increases, so does performance,
motivation, and focus.
 When too much stress occurs performance
declines, people feel overwhelmed.

7. Sources of Stress
 Ethical decision making by leaders is a source of stress. Stress and making ethical,
correct, just decisions go hand-in-hand.
 Managers often need to juggle multiple tasks, dilemmas, or decisions at the same
time. Busy, demanding work schedules cause stress.
 American study, almost half of all workers (48%) reported that they responded to job
pressure by performing unethical or illegal activities and 58% of the respondents
admitted that workplace pressures had caused them to at least consider acting
unethically or illegally on the job.
 Negative stress can influence people’s moral actions.
 Rewards, or lack of rewards, are important factors in ethical decision making under
stress. Rewards can be monetary or by receiving positive feedback.
 Frequently examined causes of organization stress are work overload, conflict, and
role ambiguity. Personality variables will effect the amount and cause of stress. Public
service jobs involve tasks that are known to be very stressful. Many studies have been
done on nurses, police officers, and air traffic controllers and how they deal with job
stress.

8. Sources of Stress (cont.)
 Employees are stressed the most when they feel a lack of control and direction in their
profession.
 Physical work conditions can cause stress- noise, temperatures, smells, and threat of
bodily injury.
 Workload can cause stress, both very low and high. When employees have little to do,
are not challenged at all, they may feel bored or anxious. On the other end of the
spectrum, very high workloads and difficult tasks cause pressure.
 Organizational justice refers to how employees feel they are being treated. If felt they
are treated unfairly, do not receive what they deserve, and are being ignored, stress
can occur.
 There are multiple types of injustice. Distributive (fairness of outcome), Procedural
(fairness of the process used in making decision), Interactional (nature of
communication and how you are being treated).

9. Coping With Stress
 Choose between alternatives- Indecisiveness regarding difficult career choices can be
very stressful. Make a list of alternatives and put a value on them. Answer questions
on what makes you happy, what gives you the most fulfillment in life, and how do you
want to spend your time? Identify positive and negative outcomes with all
alternatives. What positives are in line with your values?
 Manage your time- Always feel like there are not enough hours in the workday? Keep
track of the amount of time you spend on individual tasks and projects throughout the
day. Set limits on amount of time you put into the small stuff. Prioritize and
accomplish the most critical tasks first.
 Lifestyle change- Stress has both emotional and physical side effects. Keeping your
body healthy is a way to cope with stress. It is important to eat healthy, exercise, work
on staying calm through meditation or yoga, and get enough sleep each night. Make
sure you plan enough time enjoying life outside of work with friends and family. A
more relaxed person is a less stressful one.

10. Coping With Stress (cont.)
 Attitude adjustments- Having a more positive attitude will help reduce stress in your
life. Depending on how you handle stress, it can have positive effects. Being able to
positively handle change, problems, and difficulties at work will help decrease bad
stress.
 Social support- Isolating yourself when under stress can have negative, unhealthy
consequences. People are social beings, it is healthy to seek support, guidance, and
wisdom from friends, family, and co-workers. Having positive relationships, both in
and out of work, will help you cope with stress. Social support gives people a self-
esteem boost when needed, laughter, humor, relaxation, and guidance.