STRESS MANAGEMENT

Organizational Behavior- Group No. 4

The report herein gives a glance for what we call is stress management. He further explains the various causes of stress management at job. The report finally concludes with explaining how companies have overcome stress and is recognized as KRA for companies with suitable examples. Aman Solanki, Arpit Khanna, Dixit Verma, Ekta Marwah, Priya Arora 8/19/2009

CONTENTS

S.No
1. 2 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

TOPIC
INTRODUCTION EFFECT OF STRESS ON JOB PERFORMANCE HOW TO COPE WITH STRESS STRATEGIES TO COPE UP A STUDY OF MALE AND FEMALE DEGREE STRESS CONTROL- KRA FOR COMPANIES BIBLIOGRAPHY

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INTRODUCTION
Completing a project on time, preparing a complicated report, taking a final examination and giving a formal speech are some situations where an individual may find himself/herself under stress. Many behavioral experts agree that stress is an individuals response to a physical, psychological or emotional stimulus. Factors such as increasing competition, corporate restructuring and downsizing have compelled employees to work longer hours to meet their deadlines. Organizations also try and generate more output from fewer people in a shorter span of time. This trend pressurizes employees leading to negative consequences such as burnout, high turnover, aggression and stress. Work stress has become the latest corporate catchword and is reason for genuine concern. Stephen P Robbins defines stress as a dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with an opportunity, constraint or demand related to what he or she desires and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important. Job stress is a condition arising from the interaction of people and their jobs and characterized by changes within people that force them to deviate from their normal functioning. Now let us give a glance to the various factors that result in job stress in an individual.

1. Extraorganisatioanl stressors Social and technological changes Family problems

Relocation Economic and Financial condition Race and Class Residentiall and Community conditions

2. Organizational stressors High-stress jobs Job role Poor Working conditions Organizational politics Poor work relationship

3. Group stressors Absence of group cohesiveness Absence of support from group members Conflicts related to the group 4. Individual stressors Role conflict and ambiguity Type A characteristics Locus of control Learned helplessness Self-efficacy Psychological hardness

EFFECT OF STRESS ON JOB PERFORMANCE

Stress is a mental and physical condition, which affects an individuals quality of work. People experiencing job stress show lowered quality of work life and job satisfaction. Organizations that do not take adequate steps to lessen or alleviate stress find themselves with a high attrition rate to cope up with. The research has shown that impact of stress from overwork, long hours at work and work intensification has had a major and devastating impact on organizations. Huge amount of losses in terms of cost of compensation claims, reduced productivity, absenteeism. Added health insurance costs and direct medical expenses for stress related illnesses. A survey has shown that workers having stress seek treatment for gastrointestinal problems, mental disorders and hypertension. The process of restructuring, downsizing and reengineering has helped companies to become lean, but this employs lot of costs. Employees are experiencing more stress and uncertainty because of constant fear of getting fired. Job stress is generally a consequence of two ingredients, namely, a high level of job demands and little control over ones work. Long working hours is another cause contributing to job stress. Studies have shown that where employees are empowered and have more control over how they perform their work reduces the risk of stress and burnout considerably. The individuals who feel that they are in control of their jobs and their futures are better equipped to handle stress. Stress also reduces when a worker does not have to report to someone daily. This gives them a feel of accomplishment. Another factor that has come up is automation. It has left workers virtually on call 24 hours a day, as well as shortened the turnaround time from

project conception to completion. The ten hour job day has become routine for most of the workers. Corporate restructuring has left employees anxious about the security of their job. Symptoms of these stressed workers include drops in productivity, changes in work attitude, low morale and increased absenteeism.

HOW TO COPE WITH STRESS???

Stress has become common these days, from children to young executives and has reached to all age groups. Children are under stress of studies while young people are stressed due to work pressure at their workplaces. An MBA turned FMCG manager, is seriously contemplating signing up for the yogasna classes his colleague seems to be benefiting from. Several people are adopting various other techniques to overcome stress. Some of them are even using anti anxiety pills on the prescription of their doctor. People are seeking tools and techniques to grappie stress. Not only productivity at workplace and but physical, mental and emotional health; even life, in the long run is at stake. Professors at the management centre for human values in IIM, Kolkata clarified few things. There is a myth that stress arises from external circumstances. But the reality explains that stress is due to individual perception and is subjective. This can be explained as in an identical situation two people will behave differently leading to different stress levels. There are many other myths like stress is good. According to physics, stress indicates pressure that seems overwhelming. It cant be conducive. There are certain people who need an external push to achieve their target and that is completely different from stress. Stress management is not considered as a long run approach by many people. They believe in training the mind on how to insulate it better from swings of extreme emotion, as reaction to situations. This will allow the individual to perceive lesser stress. There can be various methods for this:

DAILY ROUTINES Including activities like physical exercise, yoga or Tai Chai in ones daily schedule will keep an individual stress free and help him progress through his tasks and life. HANDLING EMOTIONS Some of the commonly felt expressions during stress include anger, anxiety and depression. Violent expression creates wear and tear on the expressers neutral, digestive and respiratory systems. The healthier option is to stabilize your mind whenever a feeling of anger approaches it, and try not to react and respond. PROPER DIET Low carbohydrate and high protein food should be consumed as it helpful for a clearer mental focus during presentations and meetings. PLAN NING OF GOALS Before beginning any work, define your goals and place them in an order of priority. This will help in motivating to do a particular work. ACCEPT CHANGING PRIORITIES One should also accept the change in priorities. There are many reasons when you have to change your priorities like in case your family member is ill you and you are not able to do your required task due to his medication, you should not have a feeling of dissonance. RECOGNIZE YOUR UNIQUENESS One should develop a feeling of security. This means that one should be confident enough that he brings something unique for his organization or family.

STRATEGIES TO COPE UP WITH STRESS

For immediate relief Deep breathing Breathing properly at the place desired would help an individual to cope up with the stress. Visualizing a relaxing experience Psychiatrists suggested that just even thinking that you are a relaxed person and having a good time will also make you feel out of stress. Using a punching bag/pillow This technique is suggested by the doctors so that most of the stress of the patient is reduced by using a punching bag/pillow. Leaving the scene of confrontation/argument It is better if an individual forgets about the arguments causing stress and find out means so that this is not repeated again. For long term effect Consult a psychiatrist and seek counseling Stress management is very much necessary as it affects the life and its way of handling things and thus it is better if an individual consults a psychiatrist and seek counseling from him. Exercise regularly yoga helps Exercising regularly is also suggested by doctor as it helps an individual to stay fit. Now-a-days yoga is contributing a lot to reduce stress. Try new methods like laughter and music therapies New therapies like laughter and music are also tried by people who are seeking new stress busters.
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 Avoid alcohol, smoking, spicy and oily food In todays fast moving world it is better if we avoid and have oily and spicy food as it is the root cause of making people ill and making them inefficient. Consumption of alcohol and smoking is also restricted in this purview. Control anger at work place Dont delegate too much work To avoid much needed stress it is better for the management to delegate less work to their workers so that there is no scope for the stress to take place. Always have one on one talk To control anger at workplace, one should always make it a point to have one on one conversation instead of getting angry in front of other colleagues. Dont shout or insult in front of others This action of an individual will have a negative impact on others and thus it is better to avoid such acts in front of different people. Dont gossip which is a sign of passive anger Gossiping is also one such act which has a negative impact on others and thus it should also be avoided. Keep personal and professional lives separate One of the major reasons to avoid stress is to keep both the personal and professional lives separate so that it doesnt affect the person concerned.

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STRESS AND COPING:

A study of male and female degree college teachers What is stress-: When the demand on a person exceeds the persons adjustive capacity. If the resources are sufficient enough to cope with the demand then individual remains in equilibrium and if resources are short to cope with the demands then it is state of disequilibrium. Relationship between person and environment is defined by two processes-: 1) Cognitive Appraisal: In this a person evaluates whether a particular encounter with environment is relevant to his or her well being or not. There are two kinds of cognitive appraisal: a) Primary appraisal: the person evaluates whether she or he has anything at stake in this encounter b) Secondary appraisal: the person evaluates what can be done to overcome or prevent harm or to improve prospects for benefit. 2) Coping: It consists of particular thoughts and behavior a person use to manage the demands that has relevance to his or her well-being and involves lowering of emotional distress through modification of perception, attitudes and goals. It has two major functions:a) Emotion focused coping: An attempt to reduce or manage emotional distress and it includes emotions such as wishful thinking, acceptance, withholding, self-blame and growth. b) Problem focused coping: An attempt to alter or manage the situation. study of stress-coping relationship in teachers-: It is aimed at identifying the sources of role stress and life stress, way of coping and their relationship in college teachers as it has been identified that teaching is stressful occupation with aspects of job such as disciplinary problems, transfer, lack

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of administration staff ,lack of resources, overload and family conflict which are among the stressors which result in stress and strain. Sample-: A sample of 240 teachers(120 male and 120 female)working in various colleges of Lucknow with age range of 27-54 and experience range of 5-30yrs was taken. Tools to identify-: A) Life stress questionnaire-:An open ended, semi structured questionnaire to measure life stress in 3 areas: work ,family and society Four major sources of stress emerged-: a) Problem related to students b) Problem related to institution. c) Problems related to family. d) Problems related to society. The frequency of problems under each category served as a score. B) Organizational role stress scale-: It consists of 50 items with ten dimensions with 5 point rating scale ranging from if you never feel this way (0) to if you frequently feel this way (4) was provided for responding. C) Ways of coping checklist-: It consists of 68 items with response alternatives of Yes or No.

Results of this study-: 1. Males experienced greater stress in the work and society area while females experienced more stress in family area. 2. Both males and females experiences same level of role stress. 3. Males and females did not significantly differ in their use of emotionfocused and problem-focused behavior. 4. Work related stress is negatively related to problem-focused coping in males, but not in females.

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5. Males use problem-focused coping as well as emotion-focused coping while females used only emotion-focused coping. 6. Both males and females used more emotion-focused coping regarding their life problems such as work, family and society 7. Problem-focused coping is negatively related with role stress. 8. Proactive coping is a valuable and useful coping strategy in dealing with work related stress and burnout. 9. The level of stress a person experiences depend on how and how well the person copes in stressful situation because people use different kind of coping at different situation. 10. The individuals who have well developed sense of personal control, high self esteem and optimism are more likely to cope proactively with stress.

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STRESS CONTROL ~~~~KRA FOR COMPANIES

Stress is a feeling that's created when we react to particular events. It's the body's way of rising to a challenge and preparing to meet a tough situation with focus, strength, stamina, and heightened alertness. Stress can be positive or negative. Positive Stress gives us the energy to throw ourselves into something where we want to make some contribution. As said by Uttam Ghosh too, "Positive stress is an inevitable part of a challenging work scenario and it helps individuals to beat their limits of excellence. The most appropriate example can be of us, students; approaching exams enhance a student's concentration and learning capability. However, positive stress can become negative if it is not balanced and managed efficiently. But we also take cognizance of the fact that there could be situations leading to negative stress." Uttam Ghosh says further. Thus firms nowadays are putting hard on maintaining positive stress and avoiding negative stress among employees. As it is evident that it certainly hurts the performance of the employee, through affecting his/her physical or mental performance. Many companies faced a rising employee turnover ratio among those employees who couldnt cope with that much of stress of their work and office atmosphere. Does that mean they are inefficient? Not really because everyone has a certain level of stress bearing that can limit their performance too. Different firms, nowadays, understanding the need of stress management, are putting their resources and time into this activity. They have started taking it more seriously. Different developments related to work include setting achievable work targets, following a comprehensive annual KRA or goal setting exercise, performance appraisals, improving the time management skills of the employees to help them achieve work-life balance etc. other companies are putting focus on different stress relieving activities. Some follow Art of Living courses; others are enrolling employees in Yoga and health workshops. Some like Aricent Technologies have put de-stressing
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tips on their intranets. Companies like Emami provide Yoga sessions at workplace and regular exercises at office gym. Companies, now contrary to their normal behavior, encourage employees to avail themselves of their annual leave. Companies have now realized that very high stress burden eventually affects the performance of employees. It affects the health of the employee as well. To avoid this situation companies are providing some fun and social activities at regular intervals. Shantanu Banerjee, head of HR at Xansa Technologies says, To gauge the effectiveness of such de-stressing sessions, we use employee satisfaction surveys." He says Xansa has seen a growth in employee satisfaction levels. Thus increasing the employee satisfaction is all that is needed for stress management. It makes the employee feel related to its company through emotional means too. One other way for reducing stress level can be deployment of activities among the employees according to their level of interest so that everyone takes his/her job as an activity and not burden. That can add to the solutions of stress management too.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

The information has been taken from various newspapers in form of articles. www.wikipedia.com www.business-standards.com Organizational Behavior by Robbins Organizational Behavior by ICMR

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