Organisational change to improve working conditions should be given top priority in order to reduce job-related stress, according to a recent official US report.
Stress at Work by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the US Federal agency responsible for research into work-related illness and injury, says that job stress poses a threat not only to the health of workers but to that of organisations.
Some 40 per cent of workers say their work is "very or extremely stressful", 26 per cent say they are "often or very often burned out or stressed by their work" and 29 per cent say they feel "quite a bit, or extremely stressed at work", says the report. NIOSH defines job stress as the "harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker".
Job stress should not be confused with challenge, says NIOSH: "Challenge energises us psychologically and physically, and it motivates us to learn new skills and master our jobs. When a challenge is met, we feel relaxed and satisfied." Challenge is important "for healthy and productive work". But when challenge is turned into job demands that can't be met, when relaxation becomes exhaustion and instead of a sense of satisfaction there are feelings of stress, "the stage is set for illness, injury, and job failure", says NIOSH.
Experts differ as to whether the primary cause of stress is to be found in the characteristics of the worker or in the working conditions.
If worker characteristics are the primary cause of workplace stress, prevention strategies will focus on helping workers to cope with job conditions. However, "scientific evidence suggests that certain working conditions are stressful to most people" such as when there are excessive workload demands or conflicting expectations, says NIOSH. For instance, reorganisations can result in two people doing the work of three or in workers no longer feeling secure, even when they do their work well. Excessively long work shifts or production schedules with insufficient work-free days will make almost anyone stressed, regardless of their temperament, according to the report. NIOSH says that scientific evidence "argues for a greater emphasis on working conditions as the key source of job stress, and for job redesign as a primary prevention strategy".
The institute makes an explicit link between job stress and poor health and injuries. "Many studies suggest that psychologically demanding jobs that allow employees little control over the work process increase the risk of cardiovascular disease," says NIOSH. The institute also associates job stress with musculoskeletal disorders, psychological disorders like depression or burnout and workplace injuries.
NIOSH recommends the following steps to prevent unhealthy levels of workplace stress.
Preliminaries:
Appreciation of the costs and causes of workplace stress; commitment by senior management to address the problem; employee involvement at all stages of the programme; specialised training for in-house staff or use of consultants.
Step 1, identify the problem:
Hold group discussions with employees; design employee survey and measure employee perceptions of job conditions, stress, health and satisfaction;
collect objective data; analyse data to identify problem locations and stressful job conditions;
Step 2, design and implement interventions:
Target source(s) of stress; propose and prioritise intervention strategies; communicate planned interventions with employees; implement interventions.
Step 3, evaluate interventions:
Conduct short and long-term evaluations; measure employee perceptions of job conditions, stress, health and satisfaction; include objective measures; refine the intervention strategy and return to step 1.
