Tag Archives: stress

Getting Emotional at Work

Reply

Topic: Stress, Change Management
Publication: Journal of Organizational Behavior (MAY 2011)
Article: Stability, change, and the stability of change in daily workplace affect
Authors: Beal, D. J., Ghandour, L.
Reviewed by: Larry Martinez

Have you ever noticed how some people are just more emotionally volatile than others?  A coworker that comes to work happy as a clam one day and down in the dumps the next?  Researchers call this affect spin, which refers to an individual characteristic that reflects the extent to which people experience more than one emotion over time.  For example, in the picture above, each point represents one’s levels of positive and negative affect of any particular day (so four days in total).  So, since the points fall all on different parts of the circumplex, the figure represents someone with high affect spin, or several varying emotions on different days.  Beal and Ghandour (2001) examined this concept with positive and negative emotions and task motivation in the midst of a major natural disaster: Hurricane Ike.

These researchers examined several different aspects of emotional reactions.  First, they found support for a weekly cyclical cycle such that emotions are most positive during the weekend and most negative around Wednesday.  Also, for people who were high in affect spin there was a relationship between task motivation and positive emotions and motivation on one day influenced positive emotions next day.  This was not the case for those low in affect spin.  Finally, those high (but not those low) in affect spin experienced more negative emotions after Hurricane Ike than before.

So, the results show that most employees experience a predictable pattern of emotions throughout the week.  In addition, some employees are more likely to have stable variability in the extent to which they oscillate between emotions over time, over and above the weekly cyclical pattern.  Finally, some employees will recover emotionally from catastrophes than others.  This information can inform workplace human resource management decisions.

 

Beal, D. J., & Ghandour, L. (2011). Stability, change, and the stability of change in daily workplace affect. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 32, 526-546.

human resource management,organizational industrial psychology, organizational management

Creativity at Work…Through Increased Workplace Structure?

Reply

Topic: Creativity, Strategic HR, Stress
Publication: Human Resource Management (NOV/DEC 2010)
Article: Does Structuring of Human Resource Management Process Enhance Employee Creativity? The Mediating Role of Psychological Availability
Authors: G. Binyamin, A. Carmeli
Reviewed By: Lauren A. Wood

The environment of the modern workplace is increasingly becoming more dynamic and unstable leading employees to perceive high levels of work-related stress. To battle this increased uncertainty in the external environment and provide a sense of stability to employees, organizations are looking internally at the way human resources processes are designed. Structuring of HRM processes consists of 7 essential dimensions: strategic alignment with organizational goals, managerial engagement, employee job functions structured and evaluated based on a job analysis, clarity of HRM policies and evaluation criteria, planning, flexibility, and internal consistency or synergy of all processes. Structuring HR around these 7 dimensions was shown to help alleviate employee stress perceptions by decreasing feelings of uncertainty.    

Despite these positive outcomes, intuitively, it seems that by providing a structured work place, employee creativity (an indispensable factor for knowledge work) would decrease. However, as the authors of the current study show, this does not appear to be the case – because structuring HRM processes around the 7 dimensions decreased perceived employee stress and uncertainty, employees’ psychological availability (psychological recourses an employee can allocate to a given situation) was freed-up, allowing room for higher-order cogitative processes like creativity.

Continue reading →

When Mental Detachment from Work is a Must

Reply

Topic: Stress, Wellness, Work-Life Balance
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (AUG 2010)
Article: Staying well and engaged when demands are high: The role of psychological detachment
Authors: S. Sonnentag, C. Binnewies, and E.J. Mojza
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

When we’re faced with high job demands at work, stress and emotional burnout often lurk right around the corner.  Regardless of the potentially harmful effects of high job demands, they’re a reality for many of us.  But before we  throw up our  hands in surrender when work piles up,  there are buffers against the dreaded consequences of excessive job demands.  One such buffer is known as psychological detachment, which is a fancy term for “leaving work at work” and devoting mental resources to non-work-related things while not on the clock. 

In a recent study, Sonnentag et al. (2010) explored how psychological detachment helps employees stay healthy and engaged over time when job demands are high.  The findings suggest that employees who do not detach themselves from work during non-work times experience increased emotional burnout over time (one year later in the study).  High job demands also have detrimental effects on employees’ physical health and work engagement, but only for those who do not psychologically detach themselves from work.  For employees who do “leave work at work”, high job demands do NOT appear to lead to lower work engagement, increased physical health issues or increased burnout.  

Sonnentag et al.’s study reminds us that preoccupying ourselves with work during our off time (e.g., evenings, weekends, vacations) can lead to health issues and lower work engagement. 

Continue reading →

Service with a Smile? But I’m Exhausted!

3

Topic: Work Environment, Burnout
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (March, 2010)
Article: Contextualizing emotional exhaustion and positive emotional display: The signaling effect of supervisors’ emotional exhaustion and service climate.
Authors: C.K. Lam, X. Huang, & O. Janssen
Reviewed By: Allison Gabriel

Employees are frequently encouraged to engage in pleasant behavior while suppressing negative emotions, despite how they actually feel. But, what happens when employees are too emotionally exhausted to go on?

Lam and colleagues looked at this question, exploring what kinds of contexts will help employees push through emotional exhaustion to continue being friendly, even when they feel drained. The researchers explored two potential factors: supervisor exhaustion and service climate.

First, they explored whether or not a supervisor’s level of exhaustion had an impact on the
emotional exhaustion of the subordinate. Secondly, the organization’s service climate was considered, which is the level of policies and procedures employees believe to be in place about being friendly (i.e., are you going to reward me for smiling to this customer or not?!) In a study of front-line sales employees in an Asian sample, the results are clear: service climate matters the most! Service climate directly impacted employees’ positive emotional displays.

Additionally, when service climate perceptions were low and supervisors’ emotional exhaustion was high, employees seemed to experience the lowest amount of positive emotional displays.

Conclusion?

Organizations who want to save employees from emotional exhaustion (and, ultimately, job burnout) should help foster a service climate in their organizations. After all, service with a smile is part of a hard day’s work, and any factor that can assist employees would be greatly appreciated, maybe even with a smile!

Lam, C.K., Huang, X., & Janssen, O. (2010). Contextualizing emotional exhaustion
and positive emotional display: The signaling effects of supervisors’ emotional
exhaustion and service climate. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 368-376.

Heavy Workloads: Much More Than Just a Nuisance

3

Topic: Stress, Wellness, Work Environment
Publication: Personnel Psychology (Summer 2010)
Article: Psychological and physiological reactions to high workloads: Implications for well-being
Authors: R. Ilies, N. Dimotakis, and I.E. De Pater
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

In a rather unique study by Ilies, Dimotakis and De Pater (2010), the authors found that heavy workloads can have negative psychological (distress) and physiological (blood pressure) effects that fluctuate depending on an employee’s daily workload.  The authors also investigated how daily changes in workload affect employees’ daily well-being when they get home from work.

Ilies et al. employed a sample of 64 technical, clerical and administrative employees at a large U.S. university. Employees were given PDAs and an apparatus to measure their blood pressure at several time points throughout the day for a period of two weeks.  On days in which employees reported having higher workloads, they also experienced higher levels of distress at work and had higher blood pressure readings. Higher workloads were also associated with lower perceptions of well-being at the end of the work day.

The good news is that the unfavorable effects of workload tend to be much less dramatic for employees who perceive that they have more control over their work and employees who perceive that their organization values their contributions (i.e., perceived organizational support).

On the other hand, heavy workloads seem to have a very serious effect on employees who have little control over their work and feel that the organization does not value their work.

One important implication of Ilies et al.’s findings is that workload may ultimately lead to very serious psychological and physical health issues in the long run (e.g., increased blood pressure can lead to cardiovascular disease).  While it seems that our workloads continue to increase over time, organizations should note that the greater degree of control employees have over their work and the degree to which their employees feel that they support them and value their contributions seems to diminish the negative effects of heavy workloads.

Ilies, R., Dimotakis, N., & De Pater, I.E. (2010). Psychological and physiological reactions to high workloads: Implications for well-being. Personnel Psychology, 63(2), 407-436.

The Overwhelming Effect of Job Demands on Spillover

Reply

Topic: Stress,Work-Life Balance
Publication:Journal of Vocational Behavior (JUN 2010)
Article: The costs of today’s jobs: Job characteristics and organizational supports as antecedents of negative spillover
Authors:A.R. Grotto and K.S. Lyness
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

Negative work-to-nonwork spillover occurs when employees’ negative moods, behaviors, etc. from workspill over into other parts of their lives (e.g., family life).  Grotto and Lyness (2010) recently investigated several factors that lead employees to experience negative spillover, including job demands and the availability of organizational support.

Based on a representative sample of 1178 working adults in the U.S. (from “the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce”), Grotto and Lyness found that high degrees of autonomy on the job and opportunities to develop one’s skills were associated with a reduction in negative spillover – that’s the good news.  The bad news, however, is that job demands such as the degree to which employees are required to take work home, time demands, (e.g., excessive work hours) and strain-based work demands (e.g., heavy workload, difficulty of the work) were associated with an increase in negative spillover.

Interestingly, Grotto and Lyness note that while much of the research on spillover has focused on the possible buffering effects of various organizational supports, their results suggest that job demands were by far the biggest contributor to spillover.

In fact, while autonomy and opportunities to develop skills do indeed predict less spillover, the effects were very small in comparison to the negative effects of job demands such as time- and stress-based demands and work at home requirements.

Grotto and Lyness conclude that organizational supports and favorable job characteristics (i.e., autonomy) are not enough to offset the negative effects of excessive job demands.  Thus, organizations must take another look at the demands placed on their employees.  Such demands can be particularly harmful to employees and can cause major problems for them and their employing organizations in the long run (physiological and psychological health problems, turnover, etc.). The bottom line:  While organizational supports are important and do reduce negative spillover, they do not appear to come close to buffering employees from the negative effects of excessive job demands.

Grotto, A. R., & Lyness, K. S. (2010). The Costs of today’s jobs: job characteristics and organizational supports as antecedents of negative spillover. Journal of Vocational Behavior , 76, 395-405.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Stress at Work

1

Topic: Citizenship Behavior, Counterproductive Work Behaviors
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (NOV 2009)
Article: Can “good” stressors spark “bad” behaviors? The mediating role of emotions in links of challenge and hindrance stressors with citizenship and counter productive behaviors
Authors: J.B. Rodell, T.A. Judge
Reviewed By: Katie Bachman

Research suggests that stress can come from good or bad sources (Cavanaugh, Boswell, Roehling, & Boudreau, 2000).

Challenge Stressors can serve as opportunities for growth, for example:  you can be stressed because of job complexity (“now, WHAT am I supposed to do?”), workload (“I’ve got too much to do!”), and deadlines (Yikes!  It’s due tomorrow!”).

Hindrance Stressors, on the other hand, can be caused by stress because of bureaucracy (“Just let me do my job”), role ambiguity (“Whose job is this, anyway”), and hassles (“Like I said, just let me do my job!).

While both can lead to negative outcomes like emotional exhaustion, challenge stressors have been linked to positive outcomes such as job satisfaction. Hindrance stressors, on the other hand, are pretty much all bad, being linked to withdrawal behaviors and turnover.

Knowing that stress exists in these different forms is well and good, but what’s more interesting is looking at how those stressors affect voluntary behavior on the job. While we can assume that good stressors (challenge) lead to good behaviors (i.e. citizenship behaviors) and bad stressors (hindrance) lead to bad behaviors (i.e. counterproductive behaviors), it appears that good stressors can also lead to bad behaviors. How, you ask? It seems that emotions come into play and mediate the relationship between stress and behavior.

In this study, challenge stressors were linked to two emotions: attentiveness and anxiety. Both were linked to citizenship behaviors; however, anxiety was also linked to counterproductive behaviors. Yikes! Here we’re seeing a good stressor with a bad outcome. Hindrance stressors were also linked to emotions, anger and anxiety, but in that case the outcome was only counterproductive behavior. So, although bad begets bad, good can beget good or bad. For organizations, this can have some important consequences. Although you want your workers to feel challenged in their work, you don’t want them to be so challenged that their resulting anxiety leads to behaviors that undermine the organization. And the more clearly you can remove those hindrances, the better off everyone – and the organization – will be.

Rodell, J. B., & Judge, T. A. (2009). Can “good” stressors spark “bad” behaviors?
The mediating role of emotions in links of challenge and hindrance stressors with citizenship and  counterproductive behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94,1438-1451.

Stressed at Work? Here’s a Drink on Me!

Reply

Topic: Stress
Publication: Personnel Psychology (AUTUMN 2009)
Article: Daily work stress and alcohol use: Testing the cross-level moderation effects of neuroticism and job involvement
Authors: S. Liu, M. Wang, Y. Zhan, and J. Shi
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

Many employees (perhaps as many as 92.5 million in the U.S. alone) use alcohol to cope with daily work stress. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with having an adult beverage after a long day of work, but research suggests that employees who use alcohol tend to have more health and work-related problems than those who do not.

Liu, Wang, Zhan and Shi (2009) tested whether certain personality characteristics and job involvement levels make some employees more likely to use alcohol to deal with work-related stress. Liu and colleagues surveyed 37 Chinese employees in Beijing daily over the course of five work weeks about their daily work-stress levels and alcohol consumption.

Liu et al.’s results suggest that for some employees (high in neuroticism and/or high job involvement), alcohol use rises when job-stress rises. Given the known health and psychological risks of alcohol use, Liu and colleagues support the use of stress-reducing programs at work such as training employees to avoid stressful situations (e.g., interpersonal conflicts). They also recommend that organizations take care not to place employees who are high in neuroticism in jobs that may be highly stressful by nature.
Finally, although there are many known advantages to having employees who are high in job involvement (feel that their job is a central part of their life), it may also indicate a greater reliance on alcohol to cope with stressful work situations.

Liu, S., Wang, M., Zhan,, Y., & Shi, J.. (2009). Daily work stress and alcohol use:  Testing the cross-level moderation effects of neuroticism and job involvement. Personnel Psychology, 62, 575-597.