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Hargrove, M.B., Nelson, D.L., and Cooper, C.L.

(2013) Generating eustress by challenging
employees: Helping people savor their work.
Organizational Dynamics. 42, 61-69.

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Impact Factor: 0.79 · DOI: 10.1016/j.orgdyn.2012.12.008

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Organizational Dynamics (2013) 42, 61—69
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/orgdyn
Generating eustress by challenging employees:
Helping people savor their work
Matthew Blake Hargrove, Debra L. Nelson, Cary L. Cooper
Top managers understand that the wellness and wellbeing of
their employees is of prime importance. John Casey, the
director of international benefits at Google, says as a part
of Google’s big vision they are setting out to have the
‘‘healthiest and happiest workforce on the planet.’’ Why
should Google care about the health and happiness of its
people? Because healthier and happier people perform bet-
ter, stay longer, and cost less than sick and unhappy people.
There is overwhelming evidence that work-based anxiety
and burnout cause detrimental physical and psychological
disease. Wise managers ignore this evidence at their peril. A
2012 survey published by the Society of Human Resource
Management indicates that employers are increasingly inter-
ested in offering wellness programs — 63 percent of compa-
nies now offer programs, up from 47 percent in 2005. The
Googleplex, with its many gyms, running tracks, bicycle
paths, and onsite yoga instructors, sets a bar for wellness
that few organizations can match. Fortunately, managers
need not have access to the resources of one of the world’s
largest firms to strive to create a workplace in which their
employees can physically and psychologically thrive. The
purpose of this article is to offer one specific strategy for
managers wishing to achieve this goal. Specifically, we con-
tend that managers who wish to build healthy and happy
organizations must learn to differentiate between the types
of demands they place upon their people and focus primarily
on placing demands that employees can view as task-related
and linked to their own personal development.
FedEx is one of the world’s largest logistics companies.
They provide overnight shipping across the globe and have
expanded extensively into the U.S. ground freight market.
One manager who deals with a demanding workplace is John
Dunavant, who serves as FedEx’s vice president of the World-
HUB in Memphis, Tennessee. During the Christmas retail
season, worldwide shipping volume ramps up to double their
typical daily load. According to Dunavant, FedEx had its
busiest day to date on December 12, 2011, shipping more
0090-2616/$ — see front matter # 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2012.12.008
than 17 million packages. FedEx ships around 8.5 million
packages on an average business day. FedEx workers are
faced with processing millions of tasks, all under extreme
time pressure. Each FedEx operations employee is constantly
driven by the ticking of thousands of countdown clocks
commensurate with a worldwide logistics operation. Despite
this pressure, FedEx workers largely succeed at their tasks
and get the job done. FedEx places big demands on its
employees, yet they rise to meet the challenge.
This paper’s purpose is fourfold. First, we introduce the
idea of eustress and its brief history in management research.
Second, we present two frameworks that inform our under-
standing of eustress, the Challenge Hindrance Framework
and the Holistic Stress Model. Based on the intersection of
these two frameworks, we introduce a model for managers
who wish to build healthy and happy organizations by gen-
erating positive forms of stress. In the fourth section, we
suggest methods for managers to help their people savor
eustress at work and explore the positive possibilities of
eustress in the workplace.
WHAT IS EUSTRESS?
Working people know all too well the negative side of stress,
which is distress. Less often discussed is the positive side of
stress, or eustress. Jim and Jonathan Quick, based on the
foundational work of Selye, included eustress in their pre-
ventive stress management approach, describing eustress as
the healthy, constructive outcome of stressful events and the
stress response. Bret Simmons and Debra Nelson further
refined the definition of eustress as the positive psychological
response to a stressor, indicated by the presence of positive
psychological states. Individuals experiencing eustress
describe the experience as being totally focused in a mindful
state of challenge, a healthy state of aroused attention on
the task, exhilaration, and being fully present. Nurses, for
62
example, who have very demanding jobs, report eustress as
indicated by hope and active engagement in their work,
which contribute to feelings of wellbeing. Among nurses
dealing with the death of patients, those who found meaning
in work and were highly engaged still experienced eustress
and its benefits. Athletes refer to eustress as being at the top
of their game, and performance artists like opera singers
describe the feeling as being completely in synch with the
audience, immersed in the performance. In short, eustress is
related to health and wellbeing, and in turn to work perfor-
mance. Given these promising benefits, how can leaders
draw upon the research on eustress to create ‘‘eustressful’’
workplaces?
We address the question by drawing upon two streams of
research on positive stress: the Challenge Hindrance Frame-
work and the Holistic Stress Model. The result of this inte-
gration is a set of recommendations for managers who want
to generate positive stress in their organizations.
CHALLENGE HINDRANCE FRAMEWORK
The idea of challenging employees in the workplace is not a
new one. Smart managers have long understood that chal-
lenging people to push their capabilities often brings great
reward to their organizations. Having said this, we under-
stand that today’s managers are increasingly concerned
with building healthy organizations that do not place inap-
propriate demands on their people. The Challenge Hin-
drance Framework (CHF) is one novel theoretical model
that has the potential to provide guidance for management
professionals.
The CHF was first introduced by Marcie Cavanaugh and
three other collaborators from Cornell University. This
research team conducted a study of 1,900 high level
executives. The results indicated that certain types of
stressors were perceived by many of the executives to
be challenge-related and positive, while other types of
stressors were perceived to be hindrance-related and
negative. For example, most of the executives found work
deadlines to be challenging and administrative red tape to
be hindering.
As with any emerging conceptual framework, the CHF has
received attention from numerous researchers and con-
tinues to develop theoretically. Subsequent contributors
have begun to build upon Cavanaugh’s work to carefully
define challenge stressors and hindrance stressors. Gener-
ally, these researchers have tended to focus on the percep-
tual nature of all stressors. In other words, within the CHF,
individual perceptions of a stressor tend to predominate.
One theoretical approach to the definition of these concepts
was accomplished by Nathan Podsakoff, at the time a
researcher at the University of Florida. Podsakoff defines
the terms as follows: challenge stressors are ‘‘demands in
the workplace that tend to be appraised as promoting the
accomplishment of job tasks and the personal development
of the individual,’’ and hindrance stressors are ‘‘demands in
the workplace that tend to be appraised as barriers or
obstacles to the accomplishment of job tasks and personal
development of the individual.’’
Empirical findings have generally provided evidence to
support differential outcomes based upon the presence of
M.B. Hargrove et al.
challenge or hindrance stressors. In general, these findings
have supported the notion that challenge stressors are posi-
tively associated with desirable behaviors and outcomes and
negatively associated with undesirable behaviors and out-
comes. Studies also indicate that hindrance stressors tend to
be positively related to the undesirable and negatively
related to the desirable.
Challenge stressors promote positive attitudes and other
desirable organizational outcomes. One recent finding among
a sample of governmental workers in New Zealand indicated
that challenge stressors predict employee loyalty. This find-
ing suggests that challenge stressors may lead to a sense of
commitment to the organization. In addition to loyalty,
challenge stressors have also been found to be positively
correlated with motivation to learn, supervisor support, and
organizational support. These findings suggest that challen-
ging workers produces desirable attitudes and builds align-
ment between organizational and individual goals. Another
pathway through which challenge stressors seem to benefit
organizations is through their negative relationship with
undesirable behavior. To date, studies have found a negative
relationship between challenge stressors and job withdra-
wal, job search behaviors, and intention to quit. All of these
findings support the idea that people who experience chal-
lenge stressors are less apt to disengage with the organiza-
tions in which they work.
The first meta-analytic studies have been generally sup-
portive of the differential outcomes hypothesis embedded
within the CHF and the positive potential of challenge stres-
sors. A University of Florida based research team, including
Marcie and Jeffery LePine and Nathan Podsakoff, have been
systematically studying the findings related to challenge and
hindrance stressors across the management and psychology
literature. In their first published meta-analysis, they found
that challenge stressors had a direct positive effect on
performance. This study also found indirect effects on per-
formance via strain and motivation. Challenge stressors were
negatively correlated with strain and positively associated
with motivation; hindrance stressors had the opposite cor-
relations. In this research team’s second meta-analysis, they
also found evidence that supported the hypotheses that
challenge stressors are associated with positive outcomes.
The outcome variables tested in this second study included
job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover inten-
tions, and turnover. Thus, a broad view of existing data
gathered to test the CHF has found that challenge stressors
are associated with positive attitudes and behaviors, and
that challenge stressors are negatively associated with unde-
sirable attitudes and behaviors.
Though most published research supports the contentions
of the CHF, several findings call into question the differential
outcomes hypothesis. For example, both challenge stressors
and hindrance stressors have been demonstrated to be posi-
tively correlated to psychological strain or burnout. Similarly,
there is evidence to support that both challenge and hin-
drance stressors are positively associated with exhaustion.
Both of these findings suggest that even good stressors can
lead to bad stress. Previous to the development of the CHF,
many stress researchers had demonstrated that the quantity
of stressors faced by an individual affected the response. It
seems likely that challenge stressors are subject to quanti-
tative limits. In other words, challenge stressors may be like
Generating eustress by challenging employees
chocolate — too much of almost any good thing can lead to
negative consequences.
An important unpublished manuscript relevant to the
discussion of the CHF is Nathan Podsakoff’s 2007 dissertation.
In this dissertation, Podsakoff rigorously develops improved
scales with which to measure challenge and hindrance stres-
sors. Prior to performing comprehensive psychometric vali-
dation studies, Podsakoff reconceptualizes the CHF to
include eleven dimensions (four challenge dimensions and
seven hindrance dimensions). The four dimensions of chal-
lenge stressors identified by Podsakoff are: Work Load, Work
Pace, Job Complexity, and Job Responsibility. We will discuss
each of these dimensions in further detail in a subsequent
section of this article.
In summary, the CHF framework’s contributions most
relevant to this work include identifying the stressors that
many individuals perceive as positive, and elaborating on the
outcomes to be gained when employees perceive stressors as
challenges rather than hindrances. Challenge stressors offer
an intriguing avenue to explore eustress within organiza-
tions. We next turn to a discussion of a theoretical model
that offers an explanation of how eustress may lead to
desirable outcomes.
HOLISTIC STRESS MODEL
The Holistic Stress Model (HSM) was proposed by Simmons and
Nelson with the goal of offering a more complete and com-
prehensive view of the individual’s experience of work stress.
A broad version of the model is offered in Fig. 1. For the
purposes of this article, we will concentrate only on the parts
of the model (in solid lines) that pertain to eustress. To
capture the essence of the HSM, it is important to understand
some of the central tenets of the model that specifically
address eustress.
Figure 1 Holistic Stress Model
63
 Stressors are inherently neutral.
 The cognitive appraisal of any given demand or stressor
produces a simultaneous positive and negative response.
It is the response to demands that has positive and/or
negative valence and thus the response is of utmost
importance.
 Individual differences affect the way in which demands
are appraised.
 Positive and negative responses are complex and mixed.
Degrees of both positive and negative indicators of re-
sponse can be present for any given demand.
 Individuals select strategies to either eliminate or allevi-
ate their negative responses to stressors, or to accentuate
or potentially dampen their positive responses. These
strategies can be focused either on the perceived stressors
or on the perceived responses.
 Positive and negative responses differentially affect val-
ued outcomes at work.
It is important to note that the HSM places heavy emphasis
on the role of cognitive appraisal in the stress process. The
individual’s appraisal is the defining characteristic of a re-
sponse that is positive. In other words, individuals may
experience eustress if they appraise a stressor as benefitting
the individual or his/her wellbeing.
Following the work of Jeff Edwards and Cary Cooper,
Simmons and Nelson proposed that the indicators of eustress
are hope, positive affect, vigor, meaningfulness, and man-
ageability. These positive psychological states all represent
aspects of engagement. Positive affect indicates pleasurable
engagement in work, and feelings of enthusiasm, alertness,
and activity. Hope at work is a belief that one has both the
will and the way to accomplish work goals. Vigor is a positive
psychological state at work that has three dimensions: phy-
sical strength, emotional energy, and cognitive liveliness.
64
Figure 2 A Managerial Model for Eustress Generation in Organizations
Vigor is, in essence, an energy resource, related to motiva-
tion and sustained behavior. Meaningfulness is a sense of
purpose or personal connection with work. Manageability is
the feeling that one has the resources to meet the demands
of the work situation, and leads to perceptions of control
over the work setting. The authors note that these are not the
only indicators of eustress, because other positive psycholo-
gical states could also be indicators, and future research
should focus on identifying additional indicators.
The idea of savoring is unique to the HSM. In models of
distress, the related concept is coping with distress. Savor-
ing eustress is enjoying it with anticipation or dwelling on it
with delight and satisfaction. Individuals often try to perpe-
tuate positive emotions by making them last. At work,
individuals may try to experience the positive, productive
state of eustress more frequently or for longer periods of
time. This may occur when individuals enhance their expo-
sure to stressors they see as having the potential to be
positively stressful.
Although the HSM model has not been examined in its
entirety, several studies have demonstrated support for the
eustress components of the model. Specifically, support has
been found for the indicators of eustress, and for the rela-
tionship between eustress and health, wellbeing, and job
performance. The next section in this article will use the
lessons from the HSM and CHF to offer professionals in the
field of management some concrete advice with regard to
generating positive stress in the organizations they lead.
GENERATING GOOD STRESS
In this section we offer an unconventional suggestion to
managers. We suggest that managers generate healthy stress
among their employees. Our recommendations are captured
M.B. Hargrove et al.
in Fig. 2 which is a managerial summary gleaned from the HSM
and CHF models of stress.
First, managers can identify which aspects of work
employees see as most engaging, and identify why the work
is so eustressful. Then managers can design ways to enhance
the positive aspects of work. Based upon the work of CHF
researchers, four specific dimensions of stressors have been
identified as challenging, and therefore generally positive for
employees: Work Load, Work Pace, Job Complexity, and Job
Responsibility. Managers who wish to build healthy and happy
workplaces are advised to concentrate their demands into
these four dimensions rather than those demands that are
perceived as obstacles. In the subsequent paragraphs, we will
discuss the pathways by which positive stress can improve
organizational function and the methods that managers may
use to help their employees savor the positive stress to which
they are exposed. In addition, we will discuss the four types
of challenges that are most likely to result in eustress.
The reader will remember that challenge stressors are
defined as ‘‘demands in the workplace that tend to be
appraised as promoting the accomplishment of job tasks
and the personal development of the individual.’’ This defi-
nition contains four essential elements: appraisal, related-
ness, task accomplishment, and personal development. The
first element, appraisal, can be narrowly understood to be
either a cognitive step, or more broadly, as a psycho-phy-
siological response. When understood as a cognitive process,
an individual appraises a stimulus by thinking about it. In the
more holistic understanding of appraisal, an individual reacts
to a stimulus by thinking, feeling, and through physiological
changes. Whether the narrow or broad understanding of
appraisal is employed, the important thing is an individual’s
response to a stressor is based upon a reaction. Managers
wishing to promote positive stress should take every effort to
ensure that the initial reaction to a stressor be as positive as
Generating eustress by challenging employees
practical. When exposing employees to potentially stressful
stimuli, managers should attempt to frame the stimuli using
positive terms, in a positive emotional state, and in as
pleasant an environment as possible. Steve Jobs had the
reputation of being an incredibly demanding boss. He reg-
ularly asked his teams to do things that they simply did not
believe were possible. The late Apple executive believed
that the key to challenging employees included the necessity
to sell a positive vision or dream. He believed that employees
needed a hero or goal that they could emotionally rally
around. Jobs understood that to effectively challenge
employees, he needed to manage their emotional reaction
to the challenge.
The second element is relatedness. Relatedness is based
upon the term ‘‘promoting’’ found in the definition of chal-
lenge stressors. In order for a stressor to be regarded as
promoting, it must be appraised as being related to either
task accomplishment or personal development. How do man-
agers relate a stimulus to outcomes salient to employees?
Good managers demonstrate the meaningfulness of the
demands they place upon their workers. Good managers take
the time to explain how these demands are connected and
related to significant outcomes. Good managers orient their
employees within the broad context of the organization’s
mission. Good managers invest the resources and effort
necessary to demonstrate that work demands have a broader
purpose of value to both the organization and the individual.
The third and fourth elements, task accomplishment and
personal development, tie a stressor to outcomes important
to individuals. One basic definition of a healthy organization
is a group of individuals joined together to achieve a
common purpose while achieving their own individual goals.
To one extent or another, every healthy organization pro-
vides a context for constituent members to achieve perso-
nal goals. In general, the relationship between an individual
and an organization breaks down and eventually ends when
individuals cannot both benefit from and contribute to an
organization. This symbiotic relationship is at the heart of
good management practices. Managers understand that
their organizations must allow for personal development
and goal attainment. Workers understand that they must
contribute to an organization in order to achieve their own
personal goals.
Given the nature of the underlying bargain between
individuals and organizations, healthy stressors should be
tied to either a path of organizational task accomplishment
or a path of personal development. Managers accomplish this
by explicitly tying stressors to organizational objectives and
by maintaining systems through which individuals achieve
personal development within their organizations. Most con-
structive managerial practices already are related to these
two pathways. For example, many organizations already
have systems in place such as compensation structures,
employee evaluation systems, employee assistance pro-
grams, wellness programs, and retirement benefits that
are specifically designed to align organizational and indivi-
dual interests. The task of managers wishing to promote
positive organizational stress is to systematically relate stres-
sors to task accomplishment and personal development. Does
the employee want to earn a bonus so that she can take her
family to Hawaii? Then the job has to get done on time and to
specifications. Does the employee want to have the money to
65
send his daughter to the private university of her choice?
Then, the employee needs to deliver the quality of service
expected by the organization’s client consistently over a
sustained period of time. Successful managers know their
employees well enough to tie personal achievement, orga-
nizational achievement, and specific stressors together; suc-
cessful managers challenge their employees to create win-
win situations for the organization and their workers.
At this point, we offer some advice about the kind of
challenges management professionals should present to their
associates. The reader will recall that Nathan Podsakoff
identified four specific categories of challenge stressors:
work load, work pace, job responsibility, and job complexity.
In the following paragraphs we will provide some practical
examples of how managers can present these types of chal-
lenges to their employees.
Managers challenge their employees by giving them
demanding workloads. The reader will recall that workload
demands are principally concerned with the qualitative
nature of work tasks. One significant achievement of the
discipline of management in the 20th century was to recog-
nize that humans are not machines, nor should they be
treated as mere means to an end. Managers can help their
employees savor their work by assigning work that neither
under stimulates nor overextends their capabilities. Asking a
master carpenter to cut only one-foot boards or asking a
registered nurse only to take vital signs will result in an
understimulated worker. Master carpenters must be given
tasks to which they can apply their broad range of skills;
registered nurses must be allowed to employ their profes-
sional expertise in order to remain engaged in their work. In
fact, the most productive and engaged carpenters and
nurses will be those whose skills are being tested by the
work they are performing. The stress resulting from having
one’s capabilities pushed, but not overwhelmed, has long
been recognized as an important predictor of success. Man-
agers can help their employees savor their workloads by
knowing their employees’ capabilities and by assigning them
work that stretches their capabilities.
Perhaps the most prevalent challenge stressors presented
to workers involves pace. To one extent or another, all for-
profit organizations have productivity requirements. By defi-
nition, productivity involves time. Almost all work involves
some rate calculation: units per hour, patients per day, sales
per quarter, transactions per year, etc. For many workers, the
clock is always ticking. Remember those FedEx workers fight-
ing the clock? They are constantly challenged by time, yet
they consistently rise to the challenge even as demands
increase. Managers can help their employees achieve eus-
tress by following two crucial steps. First, managers need to
communicate the rationale behind time requirements. Peo-
ple understand the importance of scheduling and the value of
time. After all, they deal with deadlines and time stress in
their personal lives away from work. In general, workers are
prepared to accept the necessity of time constraints as long
as they understand that those time constraints are not
arbitrary. The factory manager should explain to the
piece-rate worker how the profit margin on the work being
accomplished is affected by time; the hospital administrator
must explain the costs of the surgical theater, nurses, and
technicians required by a particular procedure. The second
step managers should employ to help their workers savor
66
their pace of work is setting reasonable and achievable time
restrictions on work. Theories of motivation concur that
workers who do not believe goals can be attained will be
demotivated to pursue those goals. Managers who place
unrealistic time stressors on their employees will not chal-
lenge these employees, but demoralize them. On the
other hand, managers who place time demands on their
employees that challenge their abilities, similar to workload
demands, are likely to be pleased with the results. Employ-
ees are likely to positively respond to difficult but attainable
time pressure.
Job complexity is a third dimension of challenge stressors.
Job complexity is similar to, but more comprehensive than,
workload. While workload focuses on the particular tasks a
person is called to perform, job complexity refers to the more
comprehensive nature of the job as a whole. To discuss this
dimension of challenge stress, let us return to our example of
the master carpenter. The workload of a master carpenter
may be challenging or not challenging over any given period
of time. The job complexity of a master carpenter depends
upon the overall design of the master carpenter’s position. A
master carpenter’s position must be suitably complex based
upon the knowledge, skills and abilities of the carpenter. A
master carpenter who, by the nature of a job description, is
never required to draw upon the full range of capabilities will
not be challenged. Such an employee is likely to become
disengaged and is unlikely to remain a productive member of
the organization. Similarly, a master carpenter who, by the
nature of a job description, is consistently asked to perform
tasks at which there is insufficient expertise will not magi-
cally rise to the occasion, rather will find the job to be too
complex and therefore negatively stressful. Managers
wishing to help their employees achieve eustress need to
take a great deal of care with regard to some specific human
resources practices. First, jobs should be designed with
utmost care. Job descriptions should accurately reflect the
range of essential functions within the position. Secondly,
persons recruited and selected for particular positions should
have sufficient capabilities to perform required duties. Man-
agers help employees savor complexity when they push or
extend a person’s capabilities within a job; managers do their
organizations and employees no favor by hiring under or
overqualified individuals for a position. Finally, managers
wishing to help their employees savor job complexity should
strive to build training and professional development pro-
grams that will help employees develop new knowledge and
skills. Job complexity serves as a constructive source of stress
when employees’ overall capabilities are stretched, but not
exceeded, within a position.
Job responsibility is closely related to job complexity.
Where job complexity concerns the qualitative nature of
the work, job responsibility concerns the subjective level
of responsibility required by the work. Certain jobs contain
more responsibility than others. Generally speaking, job
responsibility increases along two axes. The first axis is
hierarchical position within the organization. In general, line
workers have less responsibility than supervisors, who have
less than middle managers, who have less than executives.
The higher one goes in an organization, the more responsi-
bility one acquires with regard to resources, production, and
profits. The other axis involves technical or professional
expertise. In general, jobs requiring high levels of technical
M.B. Hargrove et al.
or professional expertise involve higher degrees of job
responsibility. For example, an X-ray technologist is respon-
sible for properly generating an image, while a radiologist is
responsible for interpreting that image. If the radiation tech
fails to take a good image, the usual consequence is a
repetition of the X-ray of a patient. If the radiologist fails
to interpret the X-ray properly, the consequence might even
include death of a patient. The two axes interact with one
another in different organizations. For example, a charge
nurse who has less technical expertise than a surgeon may
supervise 30 or 40 staff members on a hospital floor caring for
dozens of patients, while a surgeon on the same floor has
responsibility for one patient and for giving orders concerning
that patient. Similarly, a newly minted M.B.A. project man-
ager may have responsibility for coordinating numerous che-
mical engineers and biomedical researchers on a drug
development team, while the highly experienced chemical
engineer only has responsibility for one discreet contribution
to the new drug.
Managers can help employees achieve eustress by knowing
their employees and by assigning responsibility commensu-
rate with the capabilities of their workers. Wise managers do
not place responsibility on employees who lack the sufficient
training to be responsible for an outcome. It is no surprise
that 24 year-old first lieutenants do not manage entire
military campaigns. Their relative inexperience and relative
low standing within a military organization make such a
responsibility ill advised. Conversely, it makes no sense to
give a general officer the command of a small detachment to
accomplish a routine mission. Responsibilities should fit the
individual.
One final note to managers about introducing challenge
stressors: Don’t overdo it. As we mentioned before, too much
of a good thing can turn bad. Few workers can maintain peak
performance indefinitely. People need time to recoup and
recover. Managers need to recognize that using challenge
stressors is not a license to overburden their people. Our
management model suggests that overburdening employees
with challenges will result in burnout. Managers should be
judicial in their introduction of stress into their workplace,
even when the stress is of a challenging nature.
Now that we have offered some specific strategies by
which managers can generate positive stress, we are pre-
pared to discuss some of the potential positive ramifications
of introducing good stress into organizations. In the final
section of this article we will discuss savoring and the positive
potential of eustress on the individuals working in an orga-
nizational setting.
SAVORING
In their recent article, Debra Nelson and Bret Simmons
suggest that employees positively experience stress through
a process of savoring. Savoring, in contrast to coping or
avoiding, means that people are prepared not simply to deal
with stress, but may in fact enjoy and relish certain types of
eustressful stimuli. For example, successful Olympic athletes
enjoy, not just tolerate, the grueling physical and mental
demands placed upon them during competition. An Olympic
swimmer spends literally months in a pool for every minute of
world-class competition. It is inconceivable that a champion
Generating eustress by challenging employees
such as Michael Phelps merely endures training for the sake of
the competition. Michael Phelps savors each race and the
multiple times of standing on the podium.
How can managers help employees savor eustress? We
suggest three avenues: through meaningfulness, mindful-
ness, and energy management. As an indicator of eustress,
meaningfulness holds promise for eustress generation and
savoring. Deeply meaningful work aligns with an individual’s
values and beliefs. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, grew the
company by delivering happiness in that corporate setting.
He created a culture that encourages happiness at work as a
part of Zappos’ business strategy. Happy employees lead to
happy customers. Hsieh describes three types of happiness,
with one being the most resilient and sustainable: higher
purpose. Daniel Pink, who proposed a framework for intrinsic
motivation, claims that purpose is one of three key intrinsic
motivators, fulfilling individuals’ desire to perform work in
service of something larger than themselves. Work that has
purpose touches several of the indicators of eustress, includ-
ing hope, positive affect, and meaningfulness.
In order to become in tune with the positive emotions
brought about by eustress, mindfulness is key. Mindfulness is
paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and
non-judgmentally. Google uses a program called ‘‘Search
inside yourself’’ that teaches mindfulness at work. The pro-
gram has three phases: attention training, self-knowledge
and self-mastery, and creating useful mental habits. Parti-
cipants in the program learn to develop a state of mind that is
relaxed and alert at the same time. They also learn how to
develop meta-attention, which is the ability to recognize
when attention has wandered. Mindfulness improves focus,
which is key to experiencing eustress. Mindfulness can encou-
rage positive affect, manageability, and vigor at work, all of
which are key indicators of eustress.
To savor eustress, individuals must understand their capa-
city to meet challenge stressors. One pathway to achieving this
is through effectively managing energy. Tony Schwartz has
written extensively about workplace practices for energy
management. At Sony Pictures Entertainment, an energy
management program was implemented that helped boost
the company’s performance through better energy manage-
ment on the part of employees. Two major shifts were made at
Sony. The first was to acknowledge that humans work best
when they alternate between periods of intense focus and
renewal. The second was to move from a philosophy of getting
more out of employees to a focus on meeting employees’ needs
for physical health, emotional wellbeing, mental clarity, and
spiritual significance. Sony employed simple rituals such as
encouraging employees to take walks for emotional breathers,
and turning off e-mail so they could concentrate better. In
addition to encouraging employees to understand their capa-
city and manage energy more effectively, managers must play
an active role in monitoring and managing the demands/ability
match. Managers can adjust demands to fit the individual’s
67
skills, or adjust the individual’s skills, through training or
coaching, to meet demands. Managing energy relates to the
vigor and manageability indicators of eustress.
Giving employees meaningful work, encouraging and
developing mindfulness in the workplace, and implementing
energy management practices are ways that leaders can
encourage eustress and savoring. We believe, in addition,
that there are ultimate benefits of eustress at work.
The Positive Possibilities of Good Stress
Combining the research from the Challenge Hindrance Fra-
mework and the Holistic Stress Model, we see that the
positive outcomes of eustress at work are many. Health
and wellbeing, job performance, organizational citizenship
behavior, and organizational commitment are outcomes that
all organizations seek to maximize. We assert that the multi-
plier of these outcomes for organizations may be flow, as
conceptualized by Czikszentmihalyi. Flow is the zone of
positive stress and peak performance in which time suspends,
individuals lose themselves in activity, and they perceive a
great sense of control over work. In essence, flow is the
ultimate eustress experience — the epitome of eustress.
Positive emotions are channeled exclusively in the energetic
pursuit of the task at hand. Daniel Goleman suggested that
brain scans conducted on individuals during flow would show
extreme activation of the left prefrontal area, which con-
tains the circuitry that lights up when positive emotions like
enthusiasm and engagement are active. He also suggests that
during flow, brain chemistry would show higher levels of
dopamine, which enhances both mood and performance.
We propose that eustress leads to savoring, which in turn
can lead to flow. In flow, there is a merging of action and
awareness such that self-reflection is absent. In other words,
demands and skills are in balance, so that self-reflection is
suspended, because all resources are focused on the task at
hand. The work may seem effortless, because effort can only
be assessed through self-reflection. On the website whole-
living.com, Olympic Champion Allyson Felix described the
difference between the stress of practice and the flow of
competition by saying ‘‘When I’m at my fastest, it feels
peaceful, almost effortless, not like the crazy fatigue and
pain of practice.’’ She must have experienced flow in winning
three gold medals at the 2012 Olympiad.
Through enhancing employees’ experience of eustress and
encouraging them to savor it, managers can strive for the
multiplying effect of flow among their employees. And, we
recommend that managers serve as role models of savoring
eustress and its benefits.
68
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
In the writing of this article we drew upon publically available
videos, interviews, articles, and other sources to provide the
reader with examples. The information about Google was
drawn from a video interview with John Casey at the 4th World
Medical Tourism & Global Healthcare Congress found on
www.yotube.com. We found information about FedEx and
John Dunavant on a FedEx corporate blog. Steve Jobs’ gui-
dance for challenging employees with new ideas was pre-
sented by Business Week columnist Carmen Gallo and found
on the www.fuelingnewbusiness.com website. When research-
ing Tony Schwartz’s experiences at Sony, we turned to his June,
2010 article in the Harvard Business Review entitled ‘‘The
Productivity Paradox.’’ The Allyson Felix quote was found in an
interview presented on the website www.wholeliving.com/
178882/five-olympic-hopefuls.
The statistics regarding wellness programs were taken
from the ‘‘2012 National Study of Employers’’ by Kenneth
Matos and Ellen Galinsky. This comprehensive study spon-
sored by the Society of Human Resources Management can
found at the following publicly accessible website (http://
familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/NSE_2012.pdf).
The authors recommend several works by James Campbell
Quick, the editor of this special issue, and his collaborators
for those readers wishing to explore eustress and workplace
wellbeing. First, we recommend The Theory of Preventive
Stress Management in Organizations (Washington, DC: Amer-
ican Psychological Association, 2007). We also recommend
‘‘Healthy, Happy, Productive Work: A Leadership Challenge’’
by Quick and his brother Jonathan D. Quick, M.D., Organiza-
tional Dynamics, 2004, 33(4), 329—337. For more background
on eustress, the reader is directed to H. Selye’s ‘‘Confusion
and Controversy in the Stress Field,’’ 1975, Journal of Human
Stress, 1975, (1), 37—44.
Readers interested in fully exploring the Holistic Stress
Model as presented by Debra L. Nelson and Bret Simmons
should read their excellent 2011 chapter ‘‘Savoring Eustress
While Coping with Distress: A Holistic Model of Stress,’’ in the
Handbook of Occupational Health edited by J. C. Quick and L.
E. Tetrick (Washington DC: American Psychological Associa-
tion). Another chapter of interest ‘‘Eustress at Work: Extend-
ing the Holistic Stress Model’’ is found in the 2007 book
Positive Organizational Behavior edited by Cary L. Cooper
and Debra L. Nelson (London: Sage, 40—54).
For readers interested in a more complete discussion of
the Challenge Hindrance Framework, the authors recom-
mend several articles. The initial article by M. A. Cavanaugh,
W. R. Boswell, M. V. Roehling, and J. W. Boudreau introduced
the CHF and is entitled ‘‘An Empirical Examination of Self-
Reported Work Stress Among U.S. Managers,’’ Journal of
Applied Psychology, 2000, 85(1), 65—74. Other important
theoretical contributions to the theory surrounding the
M.B. Hargrove et al.
CHF can be found in Nathan Podsakoff’s 2007 dissertation,
‘‘Challenge and Hindrance Stressors in the Workplace: Tests
of Linear, Curvilinear, and Moderated Relationships with
Employee Strains, Satisfaction, and Performance’’ (Univer-
sity of Florida).
The authors also recommend a number of articles that test
hypotheses related to the CHF. J.M. Harr presents some
interesting findings regarding the relationship between chal-
lenge stressors and positive attitudes and undesirable beha-
viors in the article ‘‘Challenge and Hindrance Stressors in
New Zealand: Exploring Social Exchange Theory Outcomes,’’
which can be found in The International Journal of Human
Resource Management, 2006, 17(11), 1942—1950. Boswell, J.
B. Olson-Buchanan, and Marcie LePine presented evidence of
the effect of challenge stressors on job control and strain in
their 2004 article ‘‘Relations Between Stress and Work Out-
comes: The Role of Felt Challenge, Job Control, and Psycho-
logical Strain,’’ Journal of Vocational Behavior, 64, 165—181.
Podsakoff, Jeffrey LePine, and Marcie LePine collaborated on
a series of meta-analyses designed to test the effect of
challenge and hindrance stressors on organizational vari-
ables. Their first article, ‘‘A Meta-Analytic Test of the
Challenge Stressor-Hindrance Stressor Framework: An Expla-
nation for Inconsistent Relationships Among Stressors and
Performance,’’ appeared in the Academy of Management
Journal and explored the important variable of performance
(48(5), 764—775). Podsakoff, LePine, and LePine continued
their meta-analytic studies with ‘‘Differential Challenge
Stressor—Hindrance Stressor Relationships with Job Atti-
tudes, Turnover Intentions, Turnover, and Withdrawal Beha-
vior: A Meta-Analysis’’ published in the Journal of Applied
Psychology, 92(2), 438—454. Finally, the authors direct the
reader to ‘‘Challenge and Hindrance Stress: Relationships
with Exhaustion, Motivation to Learn, and Learning Perfor-
mance,’’ by LePine, LePine, and C. L. Jackson, also appearing
in the Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(5), 883—891.
For readers interested in further exploration of savoring,
the authors direct you to the previously mentioned Nelson
and Simmons (2011) chapter. For the positive potential of
savoring we suggest the ambitiously titled The Unexpected
Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (And World Peace) by
Chade-Meng Tan (New York: HarperCollins, 2012).
For readers wanting more background in flow, we point the
reader to two book titles. The first, Flow: The Psychology of
Optimal Experience, by Mikaly Csikszentmihalyi, provides
the reader with a thorough explanation of how and why
people are able to achieve this highly desirable state (New
York: Harper & Row, 1990). The second, The Brain and
Emotional Intelligence: New Insight, by Daniel Goleman,
provides the reader with valuable additional information
on flow (Northampton, MA: More Than Sound, 2011).
Generating eustress by challenging employees 69

M. Blake Hargrove is an associate professor of management at the John L. Grove School of Business at Shippensburg
University. He holds a doctorate in organizational behavior from the University of Texas at Arlington. Hargrove’s
research interests include stress in organizations, positive organizational behavior, justice ethics in business, and
psychometrics. Prior to his academic career, he owned and operated a wood recycling business with more than 30
employees and served in the United States Navy Submarine Force as a sonar technician aboard the USS Stonewall
Jackson (Shippensburg University, United States. Tel.: +717 477 1440; e-mails: mbhargrove@ship.edu).

Debra L. Nelson is a professor of management at Oklahoma State University, where she holds The Spears School of
Business Associates’ Chair in Business Administration. Nelson won a R. D. Irwin Dissertation Fellowship Award for
her groundbreaking research. She has been honored with the Faculty Outreach Excellence Award, the Greiner
Graduate Teaching Award, the Regents’ Distinguished Teaching Award, the Regents’ Distinguished Research Award,
and the Burlington Northern Faculty Achievement Award at OSU. Her books include Organizational Behavior:
Science, The Real World, and You, Eighth Edition. She is a partner in NelsonQuick Group (Oklahoma State
University, United States).

Cary L. Cooper, CBE, is Distinguished Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University
Management School in England, is Chair of the Academy of Social Sciences (representing 44 learned societies and
88,000 social scientists), is editor in chief of the journal Stress & Health, and is a Fellow of the Academy of
Management, Royal College of Physicians (Hon), British Psychological Society, British Academy of Management and
the Royal Society of Medicine. In 2001 he was honored by the Queen as a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of
the British Empire for his work in occupational health (Lancaster University, United Kingdom).