The December CoHealth TweetChat generated a lively discussion about workplace stress (read a recap here). Some participants –notably, Dr. David Ballard from the American Psychological Association – cited the impact organizational structure and job design have on employee stress. For those interested in learning more about this model, we’ve posted the following excerpt from Bob Merberg’s The Health Seeker’s Handbook (Well Lit Books, 2003). In future posts, we’ll provide additional resources related to this essential concept in employee stress.
The primary reason that worksite wellness programs in the United States have failed to live up to their original promise — building a healthier, more productive workforce and reduced health care costs — is because these programs have focused on individual health behaviors with total disregard for the maladies and health-risks that are intrinsic to the organization itself. CEOs can be sold on the idea that their employees’ behaviors must change, but they refuse to assess the manner in which they treat those employees.
Over the last 30 years, a strong body of scientific evidence has emerged supporting the idea that employee health is driven largely by organizational dynamics, and not simply by individual behaviors.
Stress, which has been linked to the full gamut of physical ailments — from back pain to heart disease and even gastrointestinal disorders — is one of the greatest occupational health hazards. But there’s more to stress than meets the eye. Fast-paced, challenging, and intense jobs, for example, do not necessarily lead to harmful stress.
In the workplace, harmful stress is a product of having a lot expected of you and having little control over it, with limited latitude to make decisions that affect your work.. This has become known as the demand-control model of workplace health.
The effects of high demands and low-control are further confounded by “psychosocial” shortcomings in the workplace–including a lack of both emotional and technical support from coworkers, as well as supervisors.
A different but equally important view of stress in the workplace points to the relationship between an employees’ efforts and their potential rewards. Intensely demanding work along with, for example, minimal job security and few career opportunities, leads to harmful job stress. One can’t help but speculate on the implications of the effort-reward model for Americans, who are working harder than ever for rewards that pale compared to other wealthy, industrialized societies.
A report by the Economic Policy Institute indicated that today the average middle-income, two-parent family now works 660 more hours per year — the equivalent of 16 more weeks–than they did 20 years ago. “America remains the reigning workaholic nation,” the report noted. “The average worker worked 1,877 hours in 2000–more than in any other rich, industrialized country. At the same time, Americans reap fewer benefits for these extra hours, whether in the form of more vacation or holiday time or paid leave time of the sort provided by almost every other advanced economy.”
A Finnish study recently investigated stress due to high-demand and low-control jobs and stress due to high-effort and low-reward jobs. The research showed that both kinds of stress doubled employee risk of cardiovascular death. They also were linked to health risks such as elevated cholesterol levels and excessive weight gain.
If dysfunctional organizations lead to stress, and stress leads to illness, then is your job making you sick? You bet it is. And an employee brown-bag workshop on Balancing Work and Family is not going to cure what ails you.
The demand-control model and the lesser known effort-reward model reflect the emerging view that work stress and health outcomes are not simply a a result of personal behaviors. Even the United States government has come to support the premise and begun to promote it to Wall Street and Main Street, where it has yet t take hold. While acknowledging that stress-management programs targeting employee behaviors play an important supporting role, the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) takes the following stand; “As a general rule, actions to reduce job stress should give top priority to organizational change to improve working conditions.”
What type of organizational change? NIOSH recommends that employers:
- Ensure that the workload is in line with workers’ capabilities and resources.
- Design jobs to provide meaning, stimulation, and opportunities for workers to use their skills.
- Clearly define workers’ roles and responsibilities.
- Give workers opportunities to participate in decisions and actions affecting their jobs.
- Provide opportunities for socail interaction among workers.
- Establish work schedules that are compatible with demands and responsibilities outside the job.
NIOSH takes to task companies that insist that stress is a necessary evil if they wish to remain profitable. The agency points out that stressful working conditions are actually associatied with increased absenteeism, tardiness, and employee turnover — all of which adversely affect a company’s bottom line.
Robert Karasek, an expert in industrial systems and psychology, developed and populatized the demand-control model throughout the 1970s and 1980s. His theories were not a mere exercise in academics, but were applied in many industrial settings. Ultimately, they redefined organizational theory and occupational health in Scandinavian countries with dramatic, well-documented results.
Karasek argues that even typical smoking cessation programs, which target indivdiual smokers, understimate the role of stress related to poor job design. Such stress, he notes, may well be at the root of employee smoking.
But can jobs and corporations really be resturctured to create a healthier environment for employees? And even if such changes do improve health, would it be at the expense of productivity?
Karasek has documented many examples — in a variety of business sectors – of employers who restructured work and, as a result, improved employee health and increased productivity. One such example is from Volvo, the Swedish car manufacturer, which
instituted a work redesign program companywide, from assembly-line workers to executives.
One Volvo work group was studied intensively. The group implemented far-reaching changes that included a more facilitative management style, job redesign, a less confrontational role for union leadership, and a smoking cessation program.
Two years later, studies showed a decrease in the incidence of employee depression and fatigue, stress, and gastrointestinal symptoms. Smoking rates plummeted. At the same time, productivity improved measurably: Customer demands were handled more effectively, employee motivation improved, profits linked to the group increased, and the employees’ workload increased moderately, despite the reports of decreased stress.
I’ve never visited a Scandinavian country, but I’ve been told that most Americans would be shocked to witness how much latitude individual employees there — at all levels — have in making decisions.
If you are in a position of clout, I urge you to further investigate the demand-control model and steer your organization toward promoting decisional latitude at every level. If you believe that you are not in a position of clout, well… that’s the problem right
there.
Be aware that decisional latitude applies to all employees, including line workers and manual laborers. Work with your union or co-workers to campaign for increased decisional latitude. Scandinavia had its Industrial Democratization Movement; perhaps it’s
time for an Industrial Democratization Revolution in the U.S.
Each employee brings great potential and gifts to the workplace. It’s in the best interest of employee health and organizational health to put those gifts to work.
Stress at Work: Does Your Job Make You Sick?
The December CoHealth TweetChat generated a lively discussion about workplace stress (read a recap here). Some participants –notably, Dr. David Ballard from the American Psychological Association – cited the impact organizational structure and job design have on employee stress. For those interested in learning more about this model, we’ve posted the following excerpt from Bob Merberg’s The Health Seeker’s Handbook (Well Lit Books, 2003). In future posts, we’ll provide additional resources related to this essential concept in employee stress.
The primary reason that worksite wellness programs in the United States have failed to live up to their original promise — building a healthier, more productive workforce and reduced health care costs — is because these programs have focused on individual health behaviors with total disregard for the maladies and health-risks that are intrinsic to the organization itself. CEOs can be sold on the idea that their employees’ behaviors must change, but they refuse to assess the manner in which they treat those employees.
Over the last 30 years, a strong body of scientific evidence has emerged supporting the idea that employee health is driven largely by organizational dynamics, and not simply by individual behaviors.
Stress, which has been linked to the full gamut of physical ailments — from back pain to heart disease and even gastrointestinal disorders — is one of the greatest occupational health hazards. But there’s more to stress than meets the eye. Fast-paced, challenging, and intense jobs, for example, do not necessarily lead to harmful stress.
In the workplace, harmful stress is a product of having a lot expected of you and having little control over it, with limited latitude to make decisions that affect your work.. This has become known as the demand-control model of workplace health.
The effects of high demands and low-control are further confounded by “psychosocial” shortcomings in the workplace–including a lack of both emotional and technical support from coworkers, as well as supervisors.
A different but equally important view of stress in the workplace points to the relationship between an employees’ efforts and their potential rewards. Intensely demanding work along with, for example, minimal job security and few career opportunities, leads to harmful job stress. One can’t help but speculate on the implications of the effort-reward model for Americans, who are working harder than ever for rewards that pale compared to other wealthy, industrialized societies.
A report by the Economic Policy Institute indicated that today the average middle-income, two-parent family now works 660 more hours per year — the equivalent of 16 more weeks–than they did 20 years ago. “America remains the reigning workaholic nation,” the report noted. “The average worker worked 1,877 hours in 2000–more than in any other rich, industrialized country. At the same time, Americans reap fewer benefits for these extra hours, whether in the form of more vacation or holiday time or paid leave time of the sort provided by almost every other advanced economy.”
A Finnish study recently investigated stress due to high-demand and low-control jobs and stress due to high-effort and low-reward jobs. The research showed that both kinds of stress doubled employee risk of cardiovascular death. They also were linked to health risks such as elevated cholesterol levels and excessive weight gain.
If dysfunctional organizations lead to stress, and stress leads to illness, then is your job making you sick? You bet it is. And an employee brown-bag workshop on Balancing Work and Family is not going to cure what ails you.
The demand-control model and the lesser known effort-reward model reflect the emerging view that work stress and health outcomes are not simply a a result of personal behaviors. Even the United States government has come to support the premise and begun to promote it to Wall Street and Main Street, where it has yet t take hold. While acknowledging that stress-management programs targeting employee behaviors play an important supporting role, the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) takes the following stand; “As a general rule, actions to reduce job stress should give top priority to organizational change to improve working conditions.”
What type of organizational change? NIOSH recommends that employers:
NIOSH takes to task companies that insist that stress is a necessary evil if they wish to remain profitable. The agency points out that stressful working conditions are actually associatied with increased absenteeism, tardiness, and employee turnover — all of which adversely affect a company’s bottom line.
Robert Karasek, an expert in industrial systems and psychology, developed and populatized the demand-control model throughout the 1970s and 1980s. His theories were not a mere exercise in academics, but were applied in many industrial settings. Ultimately, they redefined organizational theory and occupational health in Scandinavian countries with dramatic, well-documented results.
Karasek argues that even typical smoking cessation programs, which target indivdiual smokers, understimate the role of stress related to poor job design. Such stress, he notes, may well be at the root of employee smoking.
But can jobs and corporations really be resturctured to create a healthier environment for employees? And even if such changes do improve health, would it be at the expense of productivity?
Karasek has documented many examples — in a variety of business sectors – of employers who restructured work and, as a result, improved employee health and increased productivity. One such example is from Volvo, the Swedish car manufacturer, which
instituted a work redesign program companywide, from assembly-line workers to executives.
One Volvo work group was studied intensively. The group implemented far-reaching changes that included a more facilitative management style, job redesign, a less confrontational role for union leadership, and a smoking cessation program.
Two years later, studies showed a decrease in the incidence of employee depression and fatigue, stress, and gastrointestinal symptoms. Smoking rates plummeted. At the same time, productivity improved measurably: Customer demands were handled more effectively, employee motivation improved, profits linked to the group increased, and the employees’ workload increased moderately, despite the reports of decreased stress.
I’ve never visited a Scandinavian country, but I’ve been told that most Americans would be shocked to witness how much latitude individual employees there — at all levels — have in making decisions.
If you are in a position of clout, I urge you to further investigate the demand-control model and steer your organization toward promoting decisional latitude at every level. If you believe that you are not in a position of clout, well… that’s the problem right
there.
Be aware that decisional latitude applies to all employees, including line workers and manual laborers. Work with your union or co-workers to campaign for increased decisional latitude. Scandinavia had its Industrial Democratization Movement; perhaps it’s
time for an Industrial Democratization Revolution in the U.S.
Each employee brings great potential and gifts to the workplace. It’s in the best interest of employee health and organizational health to put those gifts to work.
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This entry was posted on January 9, 2011, 5:42 pm and is filed under Commentary, Employee Wellness Programs, Stress, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.