Workplace Counselling : Organisational Interventions

1
Workplace Counselling Organisational
Interventions
2
Overview

• The concept of employee assistance
• Stressors in the Workplace
• Stress-related absence
• Organisational responsibility for stress
  management
• Creating a healthy workplace

3
The Concept of Employee Assistance

• early 1900s welfare provision
• 1920s industrial psychiatry
• Mayo (1936) a happy worker is a productive
  worker
• 1940s Employee Assistance
• Characteristics of early Employee Assistance
• aim employee regulation
• welfare team psychiatrists, social workers,
  occupational psychologists and personnel officers
• peripheral
• curative medical model

4
Characteristics of Contemporary Approaches to
Employee Assistance

• Political pressure legislation (Health Safety
  Executive, 1995) happy productive has led
  to ....
• Employee Assistance as a philosophy (Carroll,
  1994)
• Mental Health Counselling EAPs
• US litigation for cases of emotional damage,
  stress-related illness (Carroll, 1996)
• prevention better than cure

5
Stress in the WorkplaceHow bad is it ?...

• Economic health employee ill-health (-ve
  correlation)
• Dutch Bureau for Social Statistics (SCP), 2000
  5-15 pop. of Western European countries receive
  social security benefits (UK approx. 10)
• 1 in 3 unable to work due to mental grounds
  (90 suffering exogenous reaction)
• 30-60 of all sickness from work in UK due to
  some form of mental/emotional disturbance (Health
  Safety Executive,1998) 40 million working days
  per year.
• Mental Health Foundation (2000)
• 4 billion pounds lost annually
• line mgrs 75 felt anyone could suffer from
  stress at some time
• Most common musculoskeletal disorders
  (back-problems) then work-related stress

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What is Stress ?

• stress as an outside stimulus (traditional/early
  view)
• stress as an internal response
• Cannon (1930s) first to link stress to
  disease/physiological responses (animal, human
  lab studies)
• Selyle (1946) first to look at the process of
  development of illness through stress 3 stages
  - alarm reaction(lowered resistance
  counter-shock gt defense mechanisms) ...
  resistance (coping strategies) ... exhaustion
  (adaptive mechanisms collapse)

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Causes of Stress Theory

• Cumming Cooper (1979) type of P x E model
• individuals try to keep their world steady
• each factor of a persons emotional and physical
  world has a range in which that person feels
  comfortable
• the individuals behaviour which is aimed at
  maintaining this state coping strategies
• Smith et al (1978) stress occurs in all
  occupations
• NB. occupational differences (caring
  professions, medics, PSYCHIATRISTS!!) gender
  differences (men affected 2x women, although
  women increasing)

8
Burnout

• Adams (1963) Equity Theory
• High/systemic imbalance between employee
  investments (time effort) employee
  rewards
• External vs Internal Investments
• External vs Internal Rewards
• Burnout ltltlt high external effort low internal
  reward (Bosma et al, 1998 Evans Fisher,1993
  Siegrist, 1996)
• Roe Zijlstra (2000)
• increasing intensification of the working day
• work demands life demands
• N.B. Individual differences in peoples
  interpretations of events hardy personality

9
Causes of Stress Research

• Cooper et al (1988) 5 categories of work stress
  
• 1. Factors Intrinsic to Job
• hours of work (long hours, shift work) working
  conditions (heat, light, noise) risk and danger
  new technology work overload work underload
• 2. Role in the Organisation
• role ambiguity (more stress when high ambiguity),
  role conflict (job role job role, job role
  other), level of responsibility (for people or
  things Wardwell (64) for people is more
  stressful than for things)
• 3. Relationships at Work
• the importance of social support (Lazarus, 66
  Cartwright Cooper, 97)

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Cooper et al (1988), continued...

• 4. Career Development
• - job security development (high nAch)
• - retirement (role transition i.e. roleless
  role)
• - job performance and appraisal
• - unemployment (e.g. Fryer Payne, 86 low
  happiness, low self esteem and poor psychological
  well-being Eisenberg 38 Model of reaction to
  unemployment stage one shock, stage two
  optimism, stage three pessimism)
• 5. Organisational Structure Climate
• Lack of autonomy and freedom (Career Anchors)

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Consequences of Stress

• Individual
• physical coronary heart disease, backache,
  migraine, skin complaints, respiratory disorders,
  stomach ulcers etc.etc.!
• psychological decrease in job performance
  (Yerkes-Dodson Law) depression panic attacks
  etc etc.
• Organisational
• Quick Quick (1984) absenteeism and turnover
  
• loss to organisations almost half of lost
  employees salary
• By 1970s absenteeism cost more to industry than
  strikes and work stoppages
• Litigation and Health Care Costs
• Societal economic and social consequences

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Indicators of Individual Stress

• Increase in unexplained absences or sick leave
• Poor performance
• Poor timekeeping
• Increased consumption of alcohol, tobacco,
  caffeine (drug taking)
• Headaches/Backaches
• Withdrawal from social contact
• Poor judgement/indecisiveness
• Constant fatigue
• Unusual displays of emotion
• Indicators of Group Stress increased bickering,
  high staff turnover, increased grievances and
  complaints

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N.B. The Criterion Problem Diagnosing
stress-related illness

• Relevant information is not registered
• Differences in procedures/legislation
• Unclear diagnostic criteria (International
  Classification of Impairments, Diseases and
  Handicaps - no international definition of
  stress as a medical condition)

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Stress-Related Absence

• Absence figures absence due to - own illness,
  injury, medical problems, childcare problems,
  family/personal obligations, civil/military duty,
  maternity/paternity leave.
• Not included vacation, personal development
  days, industrial action - and anything else not
  given above.
• N.B. Multiple job-holders
• Absence Rate No. workers with absences No.
  workers in full-time employment (e.g. 25 100
  1 in 4)
• Absenteeism Rate Total no. lost working days /
  no. workers in workforce x no. working days) x
  100
• CBI survey 1996 - 187 million lost days (12bn)
• static among manual staff, increased by 2 days
  (on average) in non-manual workers (N.B. manual
  staff more)
• public sector vs private sector (although gap
  narrowing)

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How organisations perceive stress-related absence

• 98 said sickness absence genuine
• 20 increase in orgs using sickness record as a
  selection criteria for redundancy
• Traditionally, orgs responded to prolonged
  absence by disciplinary process/termination. Now
  - employee legislation prevents termination.
• Organisations as Ostriches!
• Organisational costs of stress-related absences
• ? overtime payments, training efforts, insurance
  premiums, admin. responsibilities, salary paid
  for no work performance, disruption in normal
  workflow
• ? morale, safety risks, productivity, quality of
  service

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Organisational Economic correlates of employee
absenteeism

• low unemployment
• growing organisation
• high employee turnover
• unionized organisation
• overtime pay available
• low wages
• employees have short tenure

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Creating a Healthy Workplace

• The individual and the organisation need to
• be aware and accept a problem exists (individual
  is not incompetent, org. must monitor
  sick/turnover rates)
• identify and isolate the problem (stress diaries,
  stress audits - employee satisfaction surveys)
• attempt to change the problem in a way that is
  mutually beneficial - or find appropriate coping
  strategy
• monitor and review the outcome of the strategy
  adopted

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Cures for Stress

• Employee Assistance Programmes
• Are employee rather than org. directed - focus
  on changing individuals behaviour (not stressors
  in the work environment)
• Feldman (1991) 75 of Fortune 5000
  organisations use EAPs
• Content of EAPs on-site fitness facilities,
  relaxation classes, counselling....
• Evaluation of EAPs Organisations like them as
  lead to significant financial benefits (due to
  decreased absenteeism) do not disrupt
  business present a high profile means whereby
  org. is seen to be doing something about stress

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Stress Management Training Content

• Behaviour Modification techniques
• Health promotion (e.g. gym membership)
• Counselling
• Cognitive Approach maladaptive thinking
• e.g. Rational Emotive Therapy - challenge
  irrational thoughts
• Humanistic-Phenomenological Approach
• e.g. Q-Sort piles describing ideal vs
  current self.
• Encounter Groups hug me, man
• Erhard Seminars training 250 people in a field
  shouting at each other

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Evaluation of Employee Assistance

• Reynolds et al (1993) SMT gt decreased
  self-report of stress, and psychological indices
  of strain - no improvement in job satisfaction,
  work stress, blood pressure
• Allison et al (1988) Counselling gt improved
  mental health - no improvement in job
  satisfaction or organisational commitment
• Ivancevitch et al (1988) Fitness Programmes gt
  70 failed to maintain the programme after
  initiation

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Changing the sources of workplace stress
prevention rather than cure

• Elkin Rosch (1990) 10 strategies
  include....
• Redesign -task, -work environment establish
  flexible working encourage participative
  management and employee development provide
  social support and feedback share rewards have
  fair employment policies
• Evidence
• Guzzo et al (1985) increased empowerment gt
  increased productivity
• Dale et al (1998) Quality Circle Programmes
  self-monitoring, autonomous work units - have
  significant positive impact on productivity and
  employee attitudes.

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Characteristics of the Healthy Organisation

• Cartwright Cooper (1994)
• Levels of stress are low
• org. commitment and job satisfaction are high
• sickness, absenteeism and turnover are below the
  national average
• industrial relations are good - strikes are
  infrequent
• safety and accident records are good
• fear of litigation is absent