Work-Life Balance and Stress

The key then is to find a balance between having enough stress to improve performance and ensuring that the level of stress does not impact negatively on performance and well-being. There is therefore an optimal point on a stress curve as shown in the following diagram.

We can further our understanding by breaking stress into its four most common types:

1. Survival stress: This may occur in cases where your survival or health is threatened, where you are put under pressure, or where you experience some unpleasant or challenging event. Here adrenaline is released in your body and you experience all the symptoms of your body preparing for 'fight or flight'.
2. Internally generated stress: This can come from worrying about events beyond your control, from a tense, hurried approach to life, or from relationship problems caused by your own behavior.
3. Environmental and job stress: Here your living or working environment causes the stress. It may come from noise, crowding, pollution, untidiness, dirt or other distractions. Alternatively, stress can come from events and pressures at work.
4. Fatigue and overwork: Here stress builds up over a long period of time. This can occur where you try to achieve too much in too little time, or where you are not using effective time management strategies.

Stress Management

Stress management is the ability to recognize the sources of stress and restructure yourself, your work or your life in order to cope with them. This is different from stress reduction which involves eliminating the sources of stress. Stressful situations can be categorized under the following four headings:

1. Significant life adjustments: this covers any serious changes in your life, which can be both pleasant and unpleasant.
2. Daily routines: daily routines such as fighting the rush hour traffic or meeting the deadline on an important project sap your energy. You become accustomed to your daily activities and easily overlook their cumulative effect on you.
3. Unrealistic self–expectations: while positive self-expectations motivate you to realize your goals, unrealistic expectations can lead to setting yourself up for failure and a lowering of self-esteem.
4. Interpersonal relationships: both personal and professional relationships require a significant amount of effort to maintain. Poor communication leads to conflict that can escalate into increased frustration and open hostility. As well as causing stress, poor interpersonal relationships can also be caused by stress.

Common stress factors are:

• family problems
• mental illness
• elderly care issues
• childcare issues
• financial issues
• legal issues
• grief and loss
• communication difficulties
• work
• health concerns
• balancing work and family
• time management problems
• change management issues

Stress and The Employer

Professor of Organizational Psychology, Cary L Cooper, argues that stress in the workplace presents a serious threat to business. [7] Quite apart from the costs associated with lost working days, a single large payout could potentially cripple a smaller organization. For larger businesses, the payout cost pales in comparison to the bad publicity and damage done to the brand. Not only does this affect customers, it also hampers the ability to attract potential employees. Stress is a serious issue which always carries serious consequences.

What Should Employers Do to Avoid Litigation?

Here are some of Cooper’s suggestions:

• Consult and follow Health and Safety guidelines.
• Encourage managers to be aware of stress in the workplace and take steps to combat this before it gets out of control.
• Offer a confidential advice service that has the authority to make referrals for appropriate counseling and treatment.
• Consider using guidance material from organizations such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
• A stress audit might help to identify potential problems. This typically involves a questionnaire given to all employees.

Setting the Standard

The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has devised a set of management standards on workplace stress intervention to help deliver a more informed approach on how to intervene in stress-related workplace problems. These are designed in particular to help organizations to:

• demonstrate good practice through a step-by-step risk assessment
• promote active discussion and agree practical improvements to be made
• help simplify risk assessment for work-related stress

The management standards focus on the following six areas: [8]

• Demands - including employee workload, patterns and working environment
• Control - the degree to which a person has a say in how they work
• Support - the resources and help available from colleagues, management and the organization
• Relationships - including promotion of a positive working culture, and how well conflict and unaceptable behavior are dealt with
• Role - how well employees understand their role within the organization
• Change - how effectively change is managed and communicated within the organization