The impact of specific stressors is determined by the total amount of stress a person is experiencing.
What might be considered a small irritant on one occasion might be the straw that broke the camel's back on another.
While businesses can't control all external stressors, action can be taken to minimize internal stressors such as the following.
- Unreasonable expectations for greater productivity, manufacturing or administrative
- Positioning people in jobs that do not use skills and abilities
- Underpaying for the the level of responsibility assigned to individuals
- Vague and arbitrary promotion policies
- Management's failure to consider employees' perspectives in decisions affecting their jobs
- Excessive overtime with or without compensation
- Arbitrary assignment of unpleasant tasks
- Failure to enforce policies for some individuals
- Poor top-down and bottom-up communications procedures
- Poor problem-solving strategies or mediation of conflicts between employees
- Family separation, through transfers or frequent business trips
- Demonstrated lack of concern for employees' welfare
- Intolerable environmental conditions -- temperature, hazardous, noise, light, odors, and so on
Just as corporate leaders are responsible for maximizing performance and increasing net profits, they are also responsible for controlling stressors that can affect the bottom line.
It is difficult to remove some of these stressors when a company is under attack by the competition or suffering from adverse economic conditions, but this challenge is just as important as any other skill set of those who wear the mantle of leadership.
Leadership Edge - Survey employees to find out which other stressors they observe in your company. Develop a plan to eliminate each of these, starting with the most prevalent stressor. Have a celebration each time you conquer one of these profit-eating, health-undermining situations.
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