roactive companies do more than merely help stressed-out employees develop coping
skills. They attack the causes of stress, experts say.
Such employers try to simplify people’s lives at work and at home, says Michael
J. Thompson, a principal with PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York.
"Even in our own firm, we’ve taken a conscious effort
to help people unplug from work," Thompson says.
When PwC employees check their work e-mail over the
weekend, a note pops up reminding them that it’s the weekend. "We encourage them
to kind of hold off until the next week," Thompson says. The company also monitors
vacation days taken and encourages employees who have reached the limit of carry-over
days to use their time off.
Research has shown stress to be a significant driver
of health care costs. Employees who say they are under uncontrolled stress have
medical expenditures that are 46 percent higher than those who were not stressed,
according to a study by Health Enhancement Research Organization, a not-for-profit
research coalition based in Birmingham, Alabama. Its focus is on health promotion
and individual productivity. The study, first published in 1998, is cited widely
because of its size and scope: It involved six large employers and more than 46,000
employees who completed a common health risk appraisal and were followed as long
as three years.
Research also has found that stress fuels absenteeism,
hampers on-the-job productivity and contributes to costly employee turnover. A 2007
survey by the American Psychological Association found that 52 percent of employees
considered looking for a new job, quit their job, declined a promotion or didn’t
seek advancement because of stress. Some 55 percent admitted they are less productive
because of stress.
According to Watson Wyatt Worldwide’s 2007/2008 Staying@Work
report, 48 percent of employers recognize that stress caused by working long hours
affects business performance, but only 5 percent are taking steps to address it.
"The reality is, in many, many workplaces there’s a
big disconnect between what employees are going through and the levels of stress
they’re experiencing and employers even picking up on the fact that that’s an issue,"
says Kathie Lingle, executive director of the Alliance for Work-Life Progress, a
Scottsdale, Arizona, unit of human resources association WorldatWork.
Even when companies are concerned about stress, they’ll
typically address employees’ susceptibility to stress, says Lyle H. Miller, co-founder
of Boston-based consulting firm Stress Directions Inc. Companies may launch a wellness
or stress management program, but "really what they need to do is to focus on the
causes of the stress and then they can go in and do something systemic," he says.
One reason many employers respond slowly is they "don’t
want to just slap a Band-Aid on the problem," says Peter G. Burki, CEO of LifeCare
Inc., a provider of work/life services based in Shelton, Connecticut. "They would
prefer to address the root causes, because that’s what pays real dividends," he
says.
But dealing with stress caused by workload demands and
lack of resources can affect the company’s bottom line. "Implementing stress management
initiatives is more effective and less expensive than dealing with the fallout of
the stress once it hits," Burki says.
GlaxoSmithKline is one employer that has made stress
management a priority. In 2003, the pharmaceutical giant began offering a "personal
resilience" seminar to equip employees with skills to ward off stress and thrive
in a challenging work environment.
That same year, it rolled out its Team Resilience program
to empower employee groups to identify and mitigate pressures that affect job performance,
including workload, management practices and teamwork. Some 25,500 employees globally
have participated in the team effort and about 2,000 have completed the personal
program. Both are voluntary.
More recently, the company’s resilience initiatives
have spawned a new program, Energy for Performance. The intent is to develop organization
leaders who are healthy, energetic, and fully engaged at work and at home.
"We don’t make this big distinction around home and
work. It really is about life, because if you’re satisfied in one side or another,
it’s going to spill over," says Kay N. Campbell, GlaxoSmithKline global health and
productivity manager in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
From 2001, the year GSK piloted Team Resilience, to
2005, it saw a 60 percent global reduction in work-related behavioral health issues
and a 29 percent drop in days lost because of mental health issues related to work.
GSK’s Team Resilience program has picked up several
honors, including the Alliance for Work Life Progress’ Work-Life Innovative Excellence
Award in 2006.
"I think that’s the most proactive model I’m aware of
in the country today of a company and its employees working together to actively
identify and eradicate stressors in the workplace," says the alliance’s Lingle.
Accounting and consulting firm Ernst & Young also is
weaving stress management into its employee assistance program, EY/Assist, which
it launched in 1975.
The program’s goal is to make employees’ busy lives
easier and, in turn, less stressful, through a variety of employee assistance and
life management services. Employees traveling for business can take their children
along and hire a baby sitter at the hotel or use the concierge service for business
and personal errands. By this fall, EY/Assist plans to launch a college consultation
service to help parents and students choose the right college and navigate scholarship
information.
Periodic surveys of EY/Assist’s users suggest that these
offerings reduce employee stress levels. In one survey this year, 75.7 percent said
they were moderately or greatly stressed when they contacted the program. But after
using the service, only 26 percent felt the same level of stress. As a result of
these services, 61.4 percent said they were more productive at work, according to
officials.
In March, the program also launched the EY/Assist Stress
Buster Blog, where employees can share stories and tips on managing stress, says
Sandra P. Turner, EY Assist’s Cleveland-based director. It’s a good way for employees
to communicate and promotes the program, she says.
Dennis Derr, director of the EAP at Aetna Inc.’s Aetna
Behavioral Health unit in Hartford, Connecticut, tries to help employers develop
a more holistic approach to stress—one that integrates medical benefits, wellness
services and EAPs—to build resilient employees.
"Going in and doing a group stress management workshop
and maybe doing some relaxation things or having people take a stress test or whatever
is not going to address the overall issue," Derr says. An effective stress management
program must integrate health benefits, wellness and EAPs since all affect how people
handle stress, he says.
Three employee suicides in late 2006 and early 2007
prompted French automaker Renault to take steps to alleviate workplace stress. The
company reportedly committed $10 million to hire more workers and train senior executives
to communicate more effectively and in a more positive way, says Lorrie Lykins,
managing editor in the St. Petersburg, Florida, office of the Institute for Corporate
Productivity, a network of corporations focused on improving workforce productivity.
The institute recently began surveying employees of
the multinational companies to assess how workers try to relieve stress. Companies
want to know the causes and implications of stress, Lykins says. Results of the
survey to be completed this summer may be useful in developing employer strategies
to deal with stress, she adds.
While Lykins says she hopes more companies will take
steps to allay workplace stress, she suspects paternalistic organizations will lag
on this issue because their leaders are out of touch with frontline workers’ concerns.
"Companies that encourage across-the-board communication
with equity, where everyone has a voice, are a lot more likely, I think, to identify
these problems and address them proactively," Lykins says.
Workforce Management Online, August 2008 --
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