Employee Stress Management
This Stress Management is People Effective
AND
Bottom Line Effective.
A Certain Amount Of Stress Is Good
It helps you rise to the occasion, perform at your peak, conquer the challenges. It makes you stronger, healthier and more confident. Excessive and / or prolonged stress is quite another thing indeed. And it certainly is NOT Bottom Line Effective.
The People-Problems of Not Managing Stress
A recent poll of 70,000 people named work or lack of work as the highest ranking Principle Stressor in America (Morse, 2004). Stress is invisible but the results of stress are not. People who have excessive or chronic (prolonged) stress may develop:
Headache, Sleep Disturbances, Difficulty Concentrating. Short Temper, Upset Stomach, Job Dissatisfaction, Low Morale and Weight Gain.
These are only some of the early signs of stress. What may not be as obvious is:
Reduced
Productivity, Creativity, Enthusiasm, Motivation & Fellowship.
Impaired
Judgment and Reliance on Simplistic Thought Processes, even for Critical Decision Making.1
Soon to follow are:
Lateness, Absenteeism, Employee Turnover. Increased Accidents, Errors and Mistakes, as well as Workplace Violence.
And also let’s be aware that chronic or excessive stress suppresses the immune system leaving us open to serious illness and disease.2,3,5
"In New York, Los Angeles and other municipalities, the relationship between job stress and heart attacks is so well acknowledge, that any police officer who suffers a coronary event on or off the job is assumed to have a work related injury and is compensated accordingly (including a heart attack sustained while fishing on vacation or gambling in Las Vegas)."4
"Research shows that 60% to 90% of all doctors visits are stress related."6
"A landmark 20-year study conducted by the University of London concluded that unmanaged reactions to stress were a more dangerous risk factor for cancer and heart disease than either cigarette smoking or high cholesterol foods."7
"Numerous studies show that job stress is far and away the major source of stress for American adults and that it has escalated progressively over the past decades."4
The Bottom Line Problems of Not Managing Stress
"Job stress is also costly, with an annual price tag for U.S. businesses of over $300 billion annually (NIOSH 2001) due to increased absenteeism, employee turnover, diminished productivity, medical, legal and insurance expenses and Workers’ Compensation payments. Put into perspective, that’s ten times the cost of all strikes combined."4
Health care expenditures are nearly 50% greater for workers who report high levels of stress. —Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.5
Job stress is responsible for 40% of employee turnover. In America job stress results in one million absent workers every day.8
The Solution: Therapeutic MediaTM
This is Not Therapy.
Though It Feels Therapeutic.
It's Relaxation Training.
Because You Can't Be Relaxed
And Stressed-Out at the Same Time.
You are guided into a state of pleasant relaxation with lovely video scenes of nature coupled with relaxation and meditative techniques to develop your Relaxation Response. A conditioned response that enables you to relax immediately on the fly, regardless of what you may be doing at the time. This is a complete program in and of itself and can also dovetail into other stress management approaches such as:
Job Redesign, Augmentation of Management Style, Improving Social Environment, Better Definition of Worker Roles, Attending to Employee Career Concerns, Addressing Environmental Conditions.
Even when utilizing some or all other possible interventions, Relaxation Training is still required. There will always be stress in even the most perfectly groomed organization. Some of which employees will bring in from their home environment, and if workers are unable to relax and throw off stress, they will not be able to achieve there highest level of functioning - So you are still left with a stressed out, lower functioning workforce.
How The Relaxation Training Works
Stressors trigger the Primary Stress Response. Eventually the stress reaction will dissipate after the stressor is either dealt with or escaped from. Job stress however, tends to be more continuous or at least is perceived as continuous. This prevents dissipation of the stress hormones and rebalancing of the system.
"The Relaxation Response is the opposite of the Primary Stress Response (Morse p.109)." As such, the ability to relax plays a major roll in how one reacts to stressors. (p. 40)
Our Relaxation Training Sessions are done in small or large groups in your facility, ours, or a theater near you. These training sessions instill a Relaxation Response so that employees can instantly shut down the Stress Response and step up to the challenge at hand.
Employees also receive an individual relaxation session CD or MP3 file to deepen and reinforce the program for ongoing results.
Program Outline
• Introduction
• Orientation (PowerPoint Presentation)
• Deep Relaxation Training Session.
• Completion of anonymous Employee Stress Management questionnaire.
• Distribution of Deep Relaxation Session CD and/or MP3 files for each employee.
What You Can Expect
You can expect your employees to be more:
Relaxed, Confident, Productive, Interested, Patient, Energetic and Decisive.
You can expect your employees to have better:
Concentration, Memory, Commitment, Sense of Humor and Positive Attitude.
You can expect:
a Calmer, more Efficient work place with Happier, Healthier employees that are on time more and absent less.
This Program Is Very Bottom Line Effective.
Ask For The FREE PowerPoint Presentation,
"Introduction to Organizational Stress Management"
Call Everett Horsley @ 856-547-5927 for more information.
References
Morse, D. R. (2004). Surviving Stress: Simple, Safe, Strategic Solutions.
Virtualbookworm.com Publishing. College Station, TX
1 Caine, R. & Caine, G. (1994). Making Connections: Teaching and the Human
Brain. NY: Addison Wesley.
2 Senior, K. (2001, Jan). Should stress carry a warning? The Lancet 357:
9250 p. 126
3 Wellbery, C. (2008, July). Chronic job strain increases risk of recurrent
coronary heart disease. American Family Physician 78.1: p. 115
4 Stress In The Workplace, Job Stress, Occupational Stress. Viewed
7/14/08, Stress.org
5 NIOSH, Stress at work. National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health. 99-101
6 Perkins, A. (1994). Saving money by reducing stress. Harvard Business
Review. 72(6):12
7 Cryer, B. (1996). Neutralizing Workplace Stress: The Physiology of Human
Performance and Organizational Effectiveness. Presented at: Psychological
Disabilities in the Workplace, The Centre for Professional Learning, Toronto,
CA. June 12, 1996.
8 Farrell, F. (1994). The demoralized zone: Healing the downsizing survivors.
Executive Direction, Sept/Oct: 37-43
Please Note;
Many scholarly journals cannot be accessed without a subscription. University and hospital libraries, research facilities, and some city and county libraries have gateway subscriptions to multiple journals and can access these papers for you.
If you are unable to gain access to a paper to which I’ve referred, please contact this office.