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
 CONTENTS

S.No TOPIC PAGE

NO.
1. INTRODUCTION 3

2 EFFECT OF STRESS ON JOB PERFORMANCE 5

3. HOW TO COPE WITH STRESS 7

4. STRATEGIES TO COPE UP 9
5. A STUDY OF MALE AND FEMALE DEGREE 11
6. STRESS CONTROL- KRA FOR COMPANIES 14

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY 16
 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 individual’s 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 individual’s

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 one’s 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 can’t 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 one’s 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 expresser’s
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 –
Psychiatrist’s 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 doctor’s 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.
 Avoid alcohol, smoking, spicy and oily food –
In today’s 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

 Don’t 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.
 Don’t 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.
 Don’t 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 doesn’t affect the person concerned.
 STRESS AND COPING:
A study of male and female degree college teachers

What is stress-: When the demand on a person exceeds the person’s

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
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 emotion-
focused and problem-focused behavior.
4. Work related stress is negatively related to problem-focused coping in
males, but not in females.
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.
 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 firm’s 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 couldn’t 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
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.
 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