The Management of Stress in Organizations and the Personnel Initiative
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055341 |
| Pages | 48-54 |
| Published date | 01 March 1977 |
| Date | 01 March 1977 |
| Author | Derek P. Torrington,Cary L. Cooper |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
The Management of Stress in
Organizations and the
Personnel Initiative
Derek P Torrington
Lecturer in Management
Sciences,
University
of Manchester Institute of Science and
Technology
Cary L Cooper
Professor of Management Educational Methods, University of Manchester Institute
of Science and Technology
Introduction
The extent to which stress at work produces a degree of psy-
chological impairment has become a central issue in the cur-
rent debate on the quality of working life. Various analyses of
alienation as a result of paced assembly lines and other forms
of mass production have spawned a range of possible initia-
tives to mitigate that condition: job enrichment, autonomous
work groups and versions of industrial democracy being some
of the best known.
More recently, consideration of managerial or executive
stress,
such as the studies of Carson,1 Maclean2 and Gowler
and Legge3 have sought to identify the nature and causes of
the psychological impairment that can affect the quality of
managerial life. Both authors of this article have already con-
sidered either the analysis of executive stress or particular
initiatives that could lead to its modification.4 The purpose of
this essay is to discuss certain initiatives for the management
of stress that might be attempted by the personnel function
within an organization, in the hope of moving the debate
forward from analysis to action.
Causes and Sources of Stress
Researchers so far have identified a long list of causal factors
in stress, which can be conveniently grouped under seven
headings (see Figure
1).
This should not be taken as a simple
list of factors to be eliminated, because the grouping includes
factors that are essential for any sort of achievement, and the
removal of one - like too much work - can result in simply
producing the opposite which is equally stressful - too little
work. Furthermore, there is the inescapable paradox that
stress to one man is satisfaction to another. For some, the lack
of job security is a stimulus to the satisfaction of living
dangerously; for others, the existence of tight deadlines is the
challenge in their job that provides the greatest satisfaction.
Lazarus5 has demonstrated that a stressful situation cannot be
defined by reference to objective criteria. Only the individual
can define his own stressors as a result of his own experience
and apprehensions, and for each individual there will be a
range of potential factors that will put him under stress.
Stimulating pressure will change to debilitating stress when
the individual feels unable to cope, becomes anxious about
that feeling of inability and begins to adopt defensive
behaviours.
Coping with Stress
Once the individual experiences his stress he will adopt a
series of behaviours reacting to it. In most cases these will be
adaptive behaviours dealing directly with the stressful situ-
ation by producing solutions to it. Typical stressors and adap-
tive behaviours might be:
Stressor Adaptive
behaviour
Overworked Some work delegated
Not aware of company policy Finds out what policy is
on a particular matter
Poor working relationship Confronts issue with col-
with colleague league and negotiates better
relationship
Underpromotion Leaves organization for
another
Company vs family demands Takes a holiday
Role ambiguity Seeks clarification with col-
leagues or superior
Each of these tackles the basic cause of the stress and solves
it, at least temporarily and perhaps permanently.
An alternative set of behaviours are those which are maladap-
tive in that they do not deal with the problem: they avoid it
and probably aggravate it. Typical of this might be:
Stressor
Maladaptive
behaviour
Overworked Accepts work overload with
result that general per-
deteriorates
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