Quite a few studies have now looked at a number of factors relating to workers' sense of control and autonomy in their jobs — one of the areas regarded as particularly important for stress. One study separated out what is likely to cause stress and what seems to have no effect. Falling into the first category is pace of work: the highly stressed have less say over their pace of work, when they can take a break and when they can take a holiday. On the other hand, having a say over one's work environment, choosing who to work with, being able to take decisions concerning one's work, having a choice about what one does at work or how one does it, surprisingly have little impact on stress levels. The kind of autonomy offered as a much-lauded characteristic of the modern workplace does not in fact reduce stress, while the loss of control over the pace of work — an endemic feature of British work intensification — is a major contributor to it.

The longest-running research on stress is the Whitehall Study of 10,308 civil servants, which found that stress was related to three variables: the amount of control the employee had in the job, the demands of the job, and the degree of support from colleagues and managers. How the three interacted was where the stress resulted; for example, if the support was excellent, an employee was more likely to be able to manage high job demands, but if the support was weak, even a low-demand job could be stressful. The study identified one other source of stress — the `effort—reward imbalance': workers are more likely to be stressed if they feel they are putting a lot of effort into the job for few rewards such as income,
promotion and recognition.

The highly stressed also expect `undesirable change' in their work situation, they are more likely to say their job security is poor, and to feel that they are unfairly treated at work. The level and pace of continuous change is singled out by Professor Cary L. Cooper of the University of Lancaster, in England, in his work with Professor Les Worrall as an increasingly important contributor to stress, leading to both a sharply increased degree of job insecurity and `change fatigue'. Cooper found that 70 per cent of British managers are affected by major organizational restructuring every year, and 40 per cent experienced redundancy and delayering — as survivors, not victims. Sixty-four per cent of those questioned in 2000 felt that morale had fallen as a result, 53 per cent that motivation had fallen, and 60 per cent that job security had deteriorated.

Cooper concludes that two factors are driving the stress epidemic: `It began with Thatcher Americanizing Britain and bringing in the gung-ho macho long-hours culture. That laid the foundations for two things which are driving stress: the assumption that long hours means more efficient — all the research proves that long hours means ill health and the breakdown of relationships, and we simply don't know what it does for productivity — and secondly, job insecurity. The sources of stress are overload, constant change and its poor management and the way people are managed generally.'

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

Return to Free Stuff List

Return to Stress Management List

________________________________________________________