The Cost Of Stress - The Need To Monitor And Manage The Risks!
By Graham Yemm, Sat Dec 10th

How much attention is paid to one of the biggest underlying riskfactors within an organisation - the effects of stress? Not onlyare there a lot of potential risks arising from the spread ofstress within an organisation, it costs them a great deal ofmoney!!

Let us start with looking at some hard-nosed numbers (based onthe UK.).

The CBI estimate that there is a cost of £4bn per annum toindustry as a direct result of related absence.

Had enough of this? Moving on to think about the risk ofunmanaged to organisations we can start by looking at the"knock-on" risks.

Where an organisation is suffering from problems therewill be a number of probable consequences, all with ensuingcosts to the business. Also, what other risks might theycontribute to?

If the atmosphere is getting worse there will be an increase instaff turnover. The costs of this are often overlooked or hiddenbehind some spurious justification. What is the direct cost ofrecruiting replacements? Oh, and the indirect costs? What is thecost of the loss of the experience and expertise? Staff turnoverdisrupts business in many ways and reduces profitability.Simultaneously, costs will increase too!

When individuals are suffering from their workperformance is likely to deteriorate. The quality of decisionmaking will go down, possibly with faulty judgements being made.What is the risk to the organisation of this? It is probablethat the rate of casual errors will increase too - with whatconsequences?

The relations between people will be effected, for the worse! Ascommunication, support or teamworking deteriorate then peoplewill not enjoy coming to work and levels of commitment arelikely to reduce. This will probably mean that customer servicegets worse too - again, with what consequences? (This will alsoapply to internal customers as well as external.)

As people become less motivated, and even demotivated, theirproductivity goes down and the impact of that is.........?

When we take into account the figures and also these probableknock-on effects, it makes sense to think about managing theorganisation in a way which will reduce the potential impact ofstress. Indeed, that is a key part of one of the HSE initiativesand the introduction of their "Management Standards for Stress."Although these are not compulsory in themselves, there islegislation

around it! There is the duty of care andresponsibility attached to managers as part of the Health andSafety legislation. This means undertaking risk assessments,creating a positive environment and managing work activity toreduce and pressure at work.

Before going further into these, let us consider what is meantby this word, "stress". The HSE define it as "the adversereaction people have to excessive pressure or other types ofdemand placed on them." A simpler option is to think of it as"the internalisation of pressure - where it exceeds your abilityto cope." When we hear people say things such as "We all needsome degree of stress", what is really being said is that weneed some level of pressure to galvanise us to action. Thesepressures can come from all sorts of sources in a work andpersonal lives - and within ourselves too.

The figure below, "The Pressure Curve" shows what we mean bythis. If the amount of pressure is not high enough, we do notfeel the need to respond and so performance is likely to bedown. (Wonderfully called "rust out" in certain circles.) Haveyou ever gone into a shop, restaurant or somewhere on a veryquiet day? What was the response and service like? This end ofthe scale can lead to problems from the boredom level!

Get the pressure "right" and we are triggered to respond in themost effective way - and will operate at our "optimalperformance" level. Moving along towards the end, the pressurelevels increase and when this is too much the response is whatmost people think of as the classic problem, "burn out"

This rarely just "happens" suddenly. The pressures build up, thesymptoms will become more and more obvious, the physiologicaland behavioural clues will be more noticeable. If the situationdoes not change, and the pressure become more manageable, theperson who is at this end will probably start to become ill asthe body sends out signals to say it needs to protect itselfagainst this burnout.

The challenge facing managers with this concept is to identifywhat is the "optimal" amount of pressure for each person intheir team. We each interpret pressures in different ways. Whatone of us may shrug off, another will think of as a crisis andvice versa. Add to this, we all have various pressuresinfluencing us which are external to our work. These can rangefrom personal relationships to financial, environmental topractical such as travelling. Then there is the human capacityto create pressure on ourselves through having unreasonableexpectations or by finding things to worry about over which wehave no control! How well do managers know their team members toassess their personal "negative" and "positive" pressures?

Why do the figures show such an increase in relatedproblems in recent years? Has that much changed? In short, yes!There are a number of factors, and these are an indicator andnot a comprehensive list.

Workloads - reductions in headcount yet the same or more workexpected of the people left behind

The pace of life, hassles with getting around, speed of responseto things

Expectations - of self and others

Lack of control over aspects of our lives

Materialism

Values not being met or having to operate in conflict with ourvalues

What can organisations do to monitor and manage the stressrisk?

One of the first things is to acknowledge that there is a risk.Too many managers, especially senior executives, want to hidetheir heads in the sand and deny that there is a problem, orpotential problem. They certainly do not want to suggest thatthey may be a significant contributor to the problem! isnot a problem confined to the executive suite! In fact, a higherpercentage of the workforce down the line will sufferstress-related problems than senior management. Having saidthat, the consequences to the organisation and the people of anover-stressed senior manager can be horrendous!

The organisation can use a number of factors to assess whetherthere is problem. As in most forms of good management, gatheringdata is key. Work from facts and not only conjecture, though donot ignore it.

One of the "standards" is to look at absenteeism, both thelevels and any patterns. Is the level static or increasing? Isany area of the organisation suffering more than the others?What happens when employees return to work, do you have ameeting with them to find out the real reasons for the absence,and what you can do to prevent them recurring? Also, will theorganisation offer support to help the employee? If there is apattern in one area, what is being done to address the cause?(Is it the nature of the work, or the manager or theenvironment?)

Look at the quality information. Is there an increase in errors,customer complaints or, are other standards not being achieved?Before chasing the teams or individuals and demandingimprovements, explore why things have begun to slip. Talk topeople about what is going on and how they feel.

What is happening to the staff turnover figures? Any trendsapparent? Is the organisation using exit interviews to find thereal reasons behind the departure?

To get a proper overview as an organisation, a good startingpoint is to carry out a simple audit. Questions in these areaswill help to get an immediate sense of where the organisation isin terms of meeting the HSE criteria. It will also highlightwhere issues may occur.

The culture of your organisation - how does it approachwork-related stress?

Demands on people, such as workload and exposure to physicalhazards. Is work sensibly scheduled so that the workload levelsare right?

Control over their work and the way they do it - how much saydo staff have? Are managers reasonable in their expectations andtreatment of their teams?

Relationships - how do you deal with issues such as bullying orharassment? (Another point, up to 1 in 5 people report they havebeen bullied at work.)

Organisational change - how is it managed and communicated?

Understanding of role - do individuals understand their role inthe organisation? Does the organisation ensure that individualsdo not have conflicting roles or challenges? (Is there a cleardefinition of roles?)

Support and training from peers and line managers for theperson to be able to do the core functions of the job - do youcater for individual needs and differences?

How well would your workplace score? Which areas could dowith some attention? Remember, prevention is usually preferableto cure in most things. In this case, it is almost certainly aless expensive option! Pay attention to these factors and theorganisation can start to address early on, preventing itbecoming a problem.

Another thing for the management team to do, is to develop anunderstanding of stress, its causes, symptoms and consequences.They can then begin to operate in a way which will create ahealthier organisation. They can monitor the "health" using theapproach above - and then set about managing to maintain ahealthy environment. The secret to management is notabout learning to relax, exercise or other coping strategies,although these do help. It is about getting to the cause of theproblem and dealing with it from there. Good managementpractices, good communication, and supporting and caring forpeople will all help to reduce the risk of stress. Reduce stressand you reduce risks in many other areas of the business.

About the author:Graham Yemm a founding partner of Managing Pressure. He hasworked with many different organisations around the worldconducting both training and consultancy assignments. He isinvolved with both organisations and individuals in helping themdeal with the challenges of pressure and coping with stress.Contact, managingpressure.com or +44 1483 480656