UNIVERSITY OF LJUBLJANA
FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
Authors: Ivana Dasović, Sara Grabnar, Melita Matko, Petra Urh
Mentors: mag. Martina Trbanc, prof. Vida Zorko
Stress at workplace: A case study of a mother dealing with stress on senior position
Problem based learning
Sociology of work
English
Ljubljana, November 2007
CONTENT LIST
1. iNTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................2
2. tHE DEFINITION OF STREs ................................................................................3
2.1 what is stress? ........................................................................................ 3
2.2 Stress at workplace ................................................................................. 3
3. SOURCES OF STRESS AT WORKPLACE – STRESSORS ................................4
3.1 Organizational sources ............................................................................4
4. CONSEQUENCES OF STRESS AT WORKPLACE ........................................... 5
4.1 Consequences of stress on an individual level .......................................5
4.2 Consequences of stress on an organisational level ................................6
5. HOW TO PREVENT AND MANAGE STRESS ....................................................6
6. CONFLICTS IN MANAGING FAMILY LIFE AND WORK ..............................8
7. METHODS ..................................................................................................................9
7.1 The interview/our findings .......................................................................9
7.2 Discussion of findings ...............................................................................9
8. CONCLUSION .........................................................................................................11
9. BIBLIOGRAPHY .....................................................................................................12
10. APPENDIX ................................................................................................................13
1. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, stress is an issue we are dealing with every day, even though we are often not aware of it. The tempo of modern life is very fast and we cannot find the time for ourselves. We are also expected to do our best at everything we do. Moreover when a discrepancy between work we did and work that should be done occurs, it often leads to stress.
Recently media are giving more and more attention to stress at workplace because it causes “health problems, lower productivity, creativity and competitiveness” (Božič 2003: 13). Employees are under great pressure due to high expectations of the employers and inconstancy of their work. With other words they have to fight to »survive« in an organisation. Therefore it is very important for them to know how to cope with stress, to find the time for them selves and to relax every now and then.
The report consists of two parts, theoretical and empirical. In the theoretical part we will focus on negative and for us harmful stress at workplace, where we will try to define what stress actually is, what causes it, what are the consequences of it and how we can manage or prevent it. In empirical part, we will give attention to the problem of mothers on a senior position and their balancing of work and family life, stereotypes which they are battling against and originate from the times when women were seen merely as housewives, and will also try to discover how they deal with work-related stress. To confirm the existence of these problems, we did an interview with a mother on a senior position, who has experienced this kind of stress on her own skin, when she had to write her master's degree, be active at work and simultaneously take care of her family and household.
With the help of the interview we will also try to confirm or reject the following hypotheses:
H1: Mothers on senior positions are facing stress when managing work and family life.
H2: Mothers on senior position cope well with stress.
2. THE DEFINITION OF STRESS
2.1 What is stress?
It is a well-known fact that everybody is under stress, but some people are more affected by it than others. Dernovšek (2006: 8) defines stress as “physiological, psychological, and behavioral response of an individual who is trying to adjust and accustom to inner and outer stressors”. Stress, of course, is not always negative. It is necessary to distinguish between positive (or useful-eustress) stress, which presents a challenge to us and is viewed as something that can be conquered, and negative (harmful-disress) stress, that we are incapable of tackling with (Božič 2003: 9). Dernovšek (2006: 8) mentions the “fight or flight” response to a negative situation.
2.2 Stress at workplace
Stress at workplace causes decline of “productivity, competitiveness, and creativity”, and eventually leads to health problems. Among the most stressful factors are over-demanding clients, unrealistic deadlines and expectations, poor work conditions, absurd norms, bureaucracy, etc. (Božič 2003: 13). This is why Simonič-Vidrih (2005: 63) stresses how important it is for employees to know exactly what their work includes, when they are personally responsible for a task, and what exactly are their work competences. Of key importance are also an open approach to co-workers, manners of communication, and the ability to voice one’s wishes. If all that is missing, a contact between individual and organization can lead to stress. Since employees have to successfully manage their personal life, career, work abilities, and requests of their employer the nature of such contacts is very dynamic (Simonič-Vidrih 2005: 63 – 64).
Simonič-Vidrih (2005: 64 – 67) cites Malach and Leiter, who pinpointed the following six factors that may induce stress:
1. Work Overload: Employees are increasingly expected to work overtime; they are assigned more and more tasks that are not necessarily related to their regular work position.
2. Lack of Control: Employees have a feeling that their employers do not trust them because they have appointed managers to supervise their work.
3. Inadequate Paycheck: Employees receive salary that is lower than expected.
4. Collapse of collective: Employees no longer establish deeper contacts with co-workers since many of them are temporary employed. As a result team work is absent even there, where it should be.
5. Lack of Honesty: Since co-workers more and more perceive each other as competitors there is little open communication.
6. Conflict of Values: Companies often speak about higher goals that are never realized. What is needed is a sincere dialog that would establish common values.
3. SOURCES OF STRESS AT WORKPLACE - STRESSORS
Stressor is every stimulation that disrupts the inner balance of organism and causes stress (Kosović 1987: 13). The influence of stimulation on an individual person depends on his personality. In this case, we would denominate this kind of stressors as individual stressors. Stressors can be divided into three groups: individual, collective and organizational stressors (ŠCID, 2007, online). Our report is based on stress at workplace so we will mainly deal with the last group.
3.1 Organizational sources
Černigoj Sadar (2002: 93 – 95) has grouped sources of stress in six categories:
1. Stress, that derives from work
2. Stress, that derives from the function in an organisation
3. Stress, that derives from relations at workplace
4. Stress, that derives from a career
5. Stress, that derives from organisational structure and culture
6. Gender related stress
For more detail description see Appendix 1.
4. CONSEQUENCES OF STRESS AT WORKPLACE
Stress at workplace is continuously rising. Workplace by itself usually provokes stress because of the factors as overburdening, lack of time or tight deadlines, not specifically defined roles or assignments, introducing new technology and modifying work systems, lack of opportunities to demonstrate our abilities and similar (Ihan 2005: 61). Employers are loading more and more work to employees, who work extra hours, bring work at home and do not have a regular working day. Relations are worsening due to the competition between workers (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 2001, online).
Consequences of stress can be established on an individual and organisational level (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 85).
4.1 Consequences of stress on an individual level
On this level, we distinguish between "behaviour symptoms" of stress at workplace (exaggeration with drinking alcohol and smoking, absenteeism and constantly coming late, unfinished obligations, untidiness and bad personal hygiene...), "physiological" (illnesses, exhaustion, headaches, insomnia, digestive disturbance and other health problems) and "psychological" (discontentment with work, distraction, apathy, anxiousness, low self-esteem...). When these problems are not solved in time, they can lead to serious physical and psychical diseases (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 85; Božič 2003: 21 – 22).
4.2 Consequences of stress on an organisational level
There is no doubt that consequences of stress on individual level are related to the consequences that concern the entire organisation. Firstly we would like to point out increased “absenteeism” and “labour turnover” (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 85). A lot of working days are lost through absenteeism per year,which represents aconsiderable cost to employers. On account of stress the number of labour turnovers is increasing and employers are struggling with fear of loosing their employees. The moral and motivation of employees are reduced, that is why they are becoming more apathetic and unorganized, which brings lower productivity and again higher costs (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 2001, online).
5. HOW TO PREVENT AND MANAGE STRESS
The three basic steps when acknowledging the stressful lifestyle are:
- finding the stressors (undermining colleagues, post-traumatic stress disorder)
- talking to our family, partner or mental health counselor
- searching for solutions (eMedicineHealth, 2007, online).
As the solutions are concerned there are numerous suggestions of eliminating stress. For example people ought to:
- take time for their selves and for the activities they enjoy in
American Academy of Family Physicians (2006, online) primarily sees two options of dealing with our stressor:
- avoiding people or events which make us stressed out (such solution is often not possible)
- changing the reaction to the people and situations which make us nervous (a more recommended technique).
Further on advises us to:
- not bottle up our emotions (repression makes us even more stressed out)
- write a diary
- alter the environment in which we live
- try some of the contemporary techniques such as meditation, Yoga and Tai Chi (American Academy of Family Physicians, 2006, online).
Additionally Božič, when talking about work environment, recommends that the level of stress can substantially be decreased by:
- careful listening
- knowing colleagues behavior patterns
- doing the assignments in time but in a slower work rhythm in the seeking for the best solution (Božič 2003: 33 – 42).
Most importantly, by Božič, we have to change our selves in order to react differently to the stressor. We must:
- confront our fears
- learn how to harmonize private and business life
- respect our self and avoid underestimating people
- avoid pessimists
- increase our market value by becoming a wanted work force (Božič 2003: 34 – 71).
6. CONFLICTS IN MANAGING FAMILY LIFE AND WORK
The general satisfaction in life is for both men and women extremely related to their satisfaction of managing family life and work. We can say that a woman deals with more stress than a man because she has to manage the situation at home and she has to manage family life and work life. Traditionally the woman is the one who is supposed to care for the family and especially a workingwoman is under greater stress when her partner does not support her adequately or does not support her at all. Even if her partner wants to help she still most possibly experiences stress when she thinks her partner did not do the job properly or that she has to keep encouraging him. She can also suffer from stress when she does accept help from her partner because she can see that as a sign that she has failed as mother and a wife (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 97).
Three different types of conflict exist:
a) “Time conflict” (dealing with the schedules of each role).
b) “Tension conflict” (the spill over of tension or too much emotions that one role creates into the carrying out of a different role).
c) “Behavioural conflict” (the problem of switching between roles)
These conflicts are solved differently: some give priority to work and family, some give priority to work but most frequently they decide that they will not have a family (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 97).
7. METHODS
We decided to use the interview for our methodological approach to confirm or reject our hypothesis. The interview was done with a mother on a senior position who had to deal with a great deal of stress not long ago, since she had to manage family, work and she was finishing her master’s degree. The interview took place in her office on 30 October, 2007 at 12 o’clock, it consisted of nine questions and lasted approximately thirty minutes.
7.1 The interview/our findings
Stress had a very negative affect on her: she was nervous, pessimistic, could not sleep, got sick often and still feels the effects on her body. She did not go out with her friends and she started smoking again. She also did not have the time for herself.
Her family life also suffered while she was under stress: she felt as tough she was abandoning her family. The children kept asking her to play with her when she had to study. Her husband cursed the day she enrolled master’s degree and they had arguments about finishing it. The support that is expected from one’s family was not present.
At work she was not as supported as it was expected. Although they left her “alone” the last month of her studies, she had to ask specifically for less workload. After finishing her master’s degree a different stressful situation appeared: her superiors did not see her new knowledge and potential.
7.2 Discussion of findings
To confirm our hypotheses, we have chosen to do an interview with one of mothers on a senior position. We have to emphasize, that we have interviewed only one person, which means that we cannot generalize it with other mothers on this position.
H1: Mothers on senior positions are facing stress when managing work and family life.
This hypothesis was confirmed in our case. It was extremely tough for her to harmonize work, family and writing of master’s degree. Especially because she did not get the support at home, she had expected. She had a feeling of guilt because she did not give enough attention to her husband and children. Men and women are in basic satisfied when they are fulfilled in both spheres of their life, that is at home and at work (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 97). It was nothing like that in our case. She was dealing with time distress, loosing much needed energy with her children and their home work, cooking, cleaning and similar chores. We believe that other women on a position this high, deal with same problems, especially if there are a lot of work and tight deadlines. Only with persistence, ambitiousness and ability to balance both spheres, a woman can make a good career. This kind of problems can be solved differently, some cope with them successfully, other unfortunately not, so they choose between family or career (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 97)
H2: Mothers on senior position cope well with stress.
On our surprise, we could not confirm this hypothesis. Despite all suggestions in our literature about tackling stress, our interviewee did not know how to manage it. She took over some bad habits as excessive smoking and refused her friends, who were offering here some sort of relaxation. We are not certain how other women are dealing with stress, but we assume that there are more women who give up than those who deal with it. We believe that the experts should in near feature give some answers how to even start dealing with stress. Maybe this could be the salvation that would encourage women and other to avoid the stress.
8. CONCLUSION
The primary objective of our report was to present some theoretical information concerning stress, his symptoms, wide range of his effects and lastly solutions. Beside that we attempted to conform or reject our hypotheses throughout the interview, therefore the hypotheses evolved around our case study – mother on senior position.
Stress is a huge problem of the contemporary workaholic society. We cannot avoid it completely but with the right techniques it is possible to soften his influence and consequences.
As mentioned earlier in the report almost everything depends on our personality. We our selves determine to which level stress is going to control us. In general our life must evolve around positive self image, optimistic views and willingness to overcome fears and obstacles in our way (Božič 2003: 33 – 42). Small steps do matter. So write journals take care for your nutrition and recreation. If you cannot solve your problems on your own do not hesitate to talk to your family and friends and let them help you. If decreasing the level of stress is not possible it is necessary to distance yourself from your stressor, whether this is your job or your family. But primarily be organized, confident, set priorities and avoid stressful situations in the first place!
9. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books and articles:
· Božič, Mija (2003) Stres pri delu: priročnik za prepoznavanje in odpravljanje stresa pri delu poslovnih sekretarjev. Ljubljana: GV izobraževanje.
· Černigoj Sadar, Nevenka (2002): Stres na delovnem mestu. Teorija in praksa. Let. 39, št. 1, str. 81-102.
· Dernovšek, Mojca Zvezdana (2006) Ko te strese stress – kako prepoznati in zdraviti stresne, anksiozne in depresivne motnje. Ljubljana: Inštitut za varovanje zdravja Republike Slovenije
· Ihan, Alojz; Simonič Vidrih, Mateja (2005) Stres na delovnem mestu in spoprijemanje z njim: kaj lahko naredim da živim v sožitju s stresom?. Ljubljana: Arx.
· Kosović, Dušan (1987) Stres. Beograd: Nova knjiga.
Electronic sources:
· American Academy of Family Physicians (2006): Stress: How to cope better with life's challenges, http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/common/ mentalhealth/stress/167.html#ArticleParsysMiddleColumn0006 (accessed 1 November 2007)
10. APPENDIX
Appendix 1:
A more detail description of organizational sources of stress at workplace.
3.1 Organizational sources
Černigoj Sadar (2002: 93-95) has grouped sources of stress in six categories:
1. Stress, that derives from work
- Work is often a source of stress. Some occupations are more exposed to stress then other because they hold more responsibility and are more complex, such as being a pilot, doctor, surgeon and other.
- New technology is also one of many sources of stress. Workers are continuously obliged to adapt to new systems and ways of working. They must become skilled at how to deal with new machines and other work equipment.
- Many workers must cope with overburdening, which can be split in two types. "Quantitative overburdening" means that an individual has to much work to deal with. On the other side "qualitative overburdening" means that the work is to demanding and that the worker does not know how to cope with his assignment (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 93).
2. Stress, that derives from the function in an organisation
Stress, that refers to a role in an organisation, often springs up because of the indistinctness of the role (the person is not convinced of what the object of the work is, what the expectations of their co-workers are and what their responsibility is), “confliction” of role (when we are supposed to deal with some businesses we rather would not or consider that as not our work) and the degree of responsibility for other, where responsibility for people is far more stressful then responsibility for objects. The stress level is minimal when a role in an organisation is clearly defined and our expectations clear and unconflicted (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 93 – 94).
3. Stress, that derives from relations at workplace
Relations at workplace can be put in three groups: "relations with manager, inferiors and co-workers". The first group is suffering from the lack of mutually respect and confidence, the critical part in second group is that employers do not care about personal relations and do not know how to cope with people. Personal conflicts and competition is the main cause for stress between co-workers (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 93 – 94).
4. Stress, that derives from a career
When people accept a certain work, they hope someday to be promoted, that their salary would increase and that they would have a safe employment. In case these expectations do not realise, they loose their sense of appurtenance and self-esteem also the discomfort at work grows bigger (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 94).
5. Stress, that derives from organisational structure and culture
Cooperation in an organisation provides workers a feeling of appurtenance, improves communication and increases contentment with work. Organisational culture is a set of values, expectations and beliefs, common for certain group. Joining an organisation for a newcomer can be very stressful as they must learn basic foundations for organisational culture (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 95).
6. Gender related stress
Man and women both confront with stressors at workplace, but there are certain stressors that mostly appear at women: adjustment of family and work, discrimination, sexual harassment, lower salary and low psychological support. It causes not only stress but also a lack of self-esteem (Černigoj Sadar 2002: 95).
Appendix 2:
Questions for the interview:
1. Do you have the feeling that you were under great amount of stress at the time when you had to manage family; work and you were also finishing you master’s degree?
2. How did you feel stress? Which signs of stress did you feel?
3. Were the signs of stress noticed at work? How did they react, when you were worrying?
4. What was the situation at home?
5. Do you think you coped well with stress? What did you do to calm yourself? Did you use any of the relaxation methods? (If you did – which ones?)
6. How does stress influence on your family life? (positively, negatively)? Can you give an example?
7. Does managing family and a career seem stressful → have you ever felt the pressure of stereotypes (the man takes care of the family and the woman has to deal with children)?
8. What kind of a personality does a woman has to have to manage family and a career well (with the least amount of stress)? Do you think you have such a personality?
9. Did your organisation understand your stressful situation? (For example: did the give you less workload)?
The interview:
She felt that at the time of finishing her master’s degree, she was under a great deal of stress. She noticed, that she was nervous, she could not sleep, she was pessimistic (in her own words: everything was “lame”) – stress had a very negative affect on her. She had often got sick (angina), yet she had to continue working – although she took antibiotics, pills were just a temporary fix. She to this day feels the affects of stress on her body. Stress affected all the aspects of her life: when her friends asked her out (for example: to go to an event she would normally love to go), she did not care for any of it, nothing could impress her enough, we could say that she was indifferent towards their invitations.
Her family pressured her to finish already, and she felt as she was abandoning her family: the children got annoyed at the masters degree, they were wondering when she would finish all the time. They gave her a hard time because she started smoking again and they kept asking her, when she would stop. She could not tuck them in at bedtime because she had to study at night. She gave examples of the effect of stress on her family life: they had a big argument and her husband cursed the day that she enrolled the master’s degree.
She did not have the time for herself because of the time pressures – she did not use any of the relaxation methods. She only started to smoke again to unwind her a little bit.
She feels that from a biological stand of view: she thinks that women should take care of the family and that the husband should have a career, she adds: “unfortunately”. Women are supposedly more capable to run the family than men. Even if the man is willing to help and he helps, he simply cannot handle everything (he can not think of lunch, laundry and taking the children to school). Women handle better in a multitasking situation. A woman could make a career if she had the assistance of the extended family (a grandmother), but the negative aspect of this is that the grandmother takes on the role of the mother.
She thinks that a woman must have a strong personality to handle both family and a career – she thinks of herself to be capable, persistent and ambitious.
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