Stress Management - Expert Interview

This month, we took the chance to interview Dr Ken Nowack, who is the author of the stress self-assessment tool, StressScan.  Ken is one of the worlds leading experts on stress management and has had many articles on stress, resilience and the link to EI published both here and in the US.
Here Ken gives us an insight into the causes of stress and why it is currently such a prevalent subject.
 

What are the main causes of stress?

The most commonly accepted definition of stress is that stress is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that “demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilise.” From this perspective, just about anything internal to the individual (high standards, beliefs about control, unpredictability etc.) or external (high workload, poor leadership) can be classified as a “stressor.” In a recent 2006 U.S. study of the most popular causes of work stress by employee assistance provider (EAP) ComPsych, high workload accounted for 46% of reported stress followed by people related issues (28%), work/family balance challenges (20%) and job insecurity (6%).


What proportion of people are effected?

Everyone feels some amount of work stress but what is perceived as extremely challenging for one employee might merely be trivial to another. Perceptions of stress at work are quite high with several studies suggesting that 20% to 65% of all employees rate their jobs as being very or extremely stressful (source HSE). We have several research studies that ask the question of how much stress do employees experience and perceive and we have found that our findings mirror those published in the occupational stress literature. For example, when we have asked the question, “I often feel pressure and stress on my job” we find that typically about 65% of all employees strongly agree or agree with this statement.


Is there a gender/age bias for those effected?

We have found in our research that women, in particular, find greater challenges in the work/family life balance area compared to their male counterparts. It is also not uncommon for women and older employees to perceive some overt and covert discrimination that can add a level of perceived stress. A recent landmark University of California, Los Angeles study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals (oxytocin) that cause them to make and maintain friendships with other women, to be more emotionally expressive and nurturing—“tend and befriend” effect. Men and women classically react with the well known “fight or flight” response but women, it appears, react differently and it appears to be physiologically determined.


How does home life effect work stress and vice versa?

We take work stress home and home stress back to work with us. Most of us aren’t really good at “blocking” stress we experience in one area without it “leaking” into another. In fact, our personal stress and health risk appraisal tool called StressScan contains a 6-item stress scale that attempts to provide a “global” measure of perceived stressor “hassles” in six domains including work, family, health, community, financial, social and environmental over the last three months. It has shown strong associations with diverse physical health and psychological health outcomes in several published studies. This stress scale was not intended to identify specific “hassles” in any of these domains but to aggregate overall stress into a succinct measure representing the holism of how employees experience and perceive both work and life stress.

Stress seems to be a relatively new topic – do you think this is as a result of a change in our working culture or because it has become more acceptable to admit to it/that we are recognising it as a serious problem?

Companies are now seeing bottom line effects of stress on absenteeism, stress disability claims, health care costs, safety and productivity. Estimates from the 2003/2004 of the Self-reported Work-Related Illness survey indicate that perceptions of work-related stress, depression or anxiety account for an estimated 12.8 million reported lost working days per year in Britain. In a recent poll by US based TrueCareers, more than 70% of workers do not think there is a healthy balance between work and their personal lives. According to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the annual cost of sickness absence--which is directly influenced by lifestyle habits--was £11.6 billion, or £476 per employee per year in 2004. Numerous studies suggest anywhere from a 2:1 to 3:1 return on investment on employee health and wellness programmes with organisational and individual outcomes. Stress and heavy workloads have always existed—companies are now recognising that to be competitive in a world market that healthy employees can be a strong advantage on the bottom line.

Are there particular industries which are worse effected by stress? Why?

No industry sector or type of business is immune to employees experiencing stress. Research with StressScan indicates that employees in government, non-profit, and the private sectors experience similar levels of stress. The type of unique stressors experienced by employees in the service sector (e.g., teaching, health care, public safety) might be different than those in manufacturing but poor leadership practices, psychologically unhealthy cultures, inadequate resources and high workload seems to be universal.

Some useful Stress Resources can be found at the following websites:

Stress Management Society

International Stress Management Association UK

Health & Safety Executive

If you know of anyone you would like to see interviewed in the ConsultingTools newsletter, please do get in touch.