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On the Desirability of Worker Stress
Dr. Lane Tracy
Ohio University
Abstract
Much research on stress in the work environment seems to begin with the assumption that stress is undesirable and should be eliminated or reduced as much as possible. Yet living systems theory indicates that stress is an important component of motivation. Without a certain amount of stress and strain nothing is accomplished. The real issues are how much stress and what kinds of stress there should be. Since stress tends to determine the direction of motivation, industrial relations policies must make use of existing pressures and sometimes create specific stresses toward organizational purposes and goals, while reducing generalized stress and pressures toward other purposes and goals.
What is worker stress and why does it have such a bad reputation? If we look to a dictionary for definitions, we find that stress is associated with pressure, tension, and strain. The term is applied to mechanical objects as well as people. In mechanics, stress is involved in work (i.e. the transfer of force from one system to another); the same might be said of people. Stress plays an important role in the motivation of workers toward organizational goals. If work is useful and stress is associated with it, why is stress so often regarded as undesirable?
The answer is that stress does not always accomplish useful work and may have harmful effeets. Mechanical stress may deform or break an object instead of moving it; human stress may deform or break people instead of motivating them toward useful goals. The purpose of this paper is to try to identify the conditions under which worker stress is desirable or undesirable, so that we may know when stress should be added, reduced, or eliminated.
Human stress is a psychological construct used to explain behavior. As such, it cannot be observed directly. Rather, it may be measured indirectly through its effects on physiological indicators such as galvanic skin response, blood pressure, and pulse rate; psychological indicators such as manifest anxiety scales; attitudinal indicators such as role stress and job satisfaction scales; and overt behavioral indicators such as rates of work error and absenteeism. The problem with these indieators, which are often employed in research on worker stress, is that they focus primarily on the negative outcomes of stress. They overlook the fact that positive work behavior dirceted at organizational goals is also a result of stress. Thus they tend to give a false impression of the role of stress in the workplace.
The result of this focus on the negative aspeets of stress is that many people wrongly equate stress with distress. Like the term discrimination, whose meaning has been skewed by its use as shorthand for unnacceptable forms such as racial and sexual bias, stress has come to mean distress because of constant association with the various indicators of excessive or unrelieved stress. People are said to "suffer" from stress. Yet stress is also stimulating; it is indicated by the tingling sensation and the feeling of intense concentration that a person gets when facing an exciting challenge. Selye (1974) coined the term eustress to represent the positive side of stress.
The two faces of stress were brought home to me more than a quarter of a century ago when, as an undergraduate, I conducted a study of the relationship of manifest anxiety to the academic performance of elementary school children. Armed with an hypothesis that anxiety is negatively related to performance, I discovered instead a curvilinear relationship. Anxiety in the low to moderate range was positively correlated with performance; higher amounts of anxiety were negatively related to performance. The findings of that study were never published, but the results have been replicated many times since, and a similar curvilinear relationship has been found with other stress situations such as role underload/overload (Weiman, 1977). Such results suggest that moderate amounts of stress enhance performance, whereas excessive amounts of stress inhibit performance. This is by no means a startling conclusion, but we have been conditioned by our focus on the deleterious aspects of stress to forget its positive, nay essential, aspects.
Industrial relations policies can do much to promote and utilize positive forms of stress as well as to reduce or eliminate negative forms. First, however, it is necessary to understand what stress is; that is, what is behind the various indicators, Second, we must be able to recognize when stress is desirable and when it is undesirable.
The Nature of Stress
Ivancevich and Matteson (1980: 5-9) cite many definitions of human stress. Stress may be conceived as a stimulus, as in the dictionary definitions of mechanical and human stress noted earlier. The progenitor of research on human stress, Hans Selye (1956), defined stress in terms of responses to pressure. Ivancevich and Matteson favor a stimulus-response definition which emphasizes the interaction between the environment and a person's reaction to it. Granted that the term is often used in this way, it makes stress a very complex and individualistic phenomenon. Furthermore, any definition that includes responses runs the risk of focusing only on negative reactions to environmental stimuli. Stimulus definitions are simpler and more neutral.
Miller (1978: 34-35) provides an appropriate definition of stress as a stimulus. Stress in a living system is defined as a lack or excess of inputs or outputs which forces a system variable outside of its range of stability, or the threat of such a lack or excess. The inputs/outputs may consist of matter-energy or information. Thus, stress may be a stimulus of too little food input (starvation) or too much (obesity); too little information (ambiguity) or too much (overload). Stress produces strains or differences between the preferred and actual states of the system. Living systems act to alter stresses (i.e., to change rates of input or output), reduce strains, and bring system variables back within their ranges of stability.
Miller (1978: 431) equates strains with human needs. The need concept is the explicit or implicit basis of several theories of motivation. The linkage is something like this: Stress activates needs (strains) which modify the valences of expected outcomes (goals), thereby influencing the choice of goals and acts (Tracy, 1984). Thus, stress plays an important role in directing behavior.
Stress is not a necessary condition for motivation. Strains can be generated internally, for example by consuming energy or producing wastes. However, stress often brings about useful behavior. For instance, an inadequate income may motivate a worker to perform better in expectation of receiving a raise or bonus. Similarly, an excessive wage rate may stimulate better quality workmanship (Adams, 1963). In fact, organizations often create stress or take advantage of existing stress in order to motivate people toward organizational goals.
The Good Side of Stress
Stress may be regarded as desirable when it motivates a person toward system-enhancing goals. The "system" in this case might be the person or a group or organization to which the person belongs. The stress of parental pressure that directs a young person toward education is desirable so long as that person is academically successful and able to benefit from schooling. The young person, the family, and society are all enhaneed by the outcome. When that stress leads to failure, rebellion, and other negative outcomes, it becomes undesirable. Stress is transferred back to the parents, the school, and other systems.
This example illustrates three aspects of stress that determine whether it is desirable or undesirable. These aspects are the direction, intensity, and duration of stress. In the example stress was directed toward getting an education. This is an appropriate direction so long as the goal can be accomplished efficiently. That is, the stress toward education is desirable so long as the person can succeed and the outcome is worth the cost in time and effort. The intensity and duration of the stress is appropriate so long as it does not push the person beyond the point of efficiency and into the realm of negative outcomes.
Groups and organizations often take advantage of existing stresses to motivate people toward system goals. Business firms, for instance, use employees' lack of sufficient monetary income in order to direct them toward productivity. Firms attempt to direct the stress by tying income directly to performance toward business goals. Salespeople are offered a commission based on sales, machine operators are promised a bonus based on productivity, and executives' compensation is linked to profits. So long as employees are able to respond to the stress and relieve the strain through effective work performance, the stress does not become excessive. If the firm attempts to increase the stress by reducing commissions or prohibiting moonlighting, however, employees may rebel. Likewise, the stress may become undesirable if it leads an employee to goldbrick, embezzle, or manipulate the books to show a profit when there is none. Again, intensity, duration, and direction are the keys to whether the stress is desirable or undesirable.
In recent years business firms, sensing a decline in the stress of inadequate income, have looked for other stimuli that might be useful. Firms have focussed on such stresses as inadequate autonomy, lack of recognition, and insufficient opportunity for achievement. By restructuring jobs toward increasing worker control, better feedback, and broader scope, managers have sought to harness these stresses in the direction of improved performance. The results have often been desirable for both the firm and the workers. In such cases there should be no controversy about stress because organizations are acting to provide an avenue for reducing it.
If sufficient stress does not exist, people and organizations tend to create it. When people are bored, they often put themselves in a more stressful situation to generate some excitement. Similarly, managers may attempt to "build a fire" under employees by raising quotas or threatening layoffs if performance doesn't improve. This is where stress becomes controversial, Is it ethical or desirable for an organization to create stress in an individual where none existed before?
To answer this question we must take a broader view. As living systems, groups and organizations are subject to stresses just as individuals are. Financial stress is a constant fact of life for business firms. If a firm is well managed or the economy is booming, financial stress may be mild and desirable as a stimulant toward maintaining efficiency. A downturn in the economy or increasing competition may raise the level of financial stress to the point where the firm seeks to transfer some of it to individual members, however. Stockholders, whose dividends may be reduced, put pressure on top executives; they transfer it to middle-level managers, who seek ways to get more out of the workers. To some extent all of these people share the fate of the firm. If it fails, their stress levels will rise sharply. Thus it is appropriate that they share some of the increased pressure on the firm.
The question again becomes "how much" and "in what direction." Increased stress in the form of a warning from the CEO might generate greater effort and creativity. Responding to a crisis can be an exciting and rewarding experience. On the other hand, each individual's stake in the organization is limited. The firm could easily demand more than continued employment is worth to the individual. Increased pressure might also be self-defeating, at least for some individuals who cannot cope with it. Individual differences in tolerance for stress are another key element in determining its desirability. Finally, pressure may be applied in such a way that it motivates the wrong behavior, as when an incentive stimulates employees to produce quantity at the expense of quality.
The Bad Side of Stress
Stress is undesirable when it leads to system-debilitating outcomes, This can occur when the stress is too intense or not intense enough; also when it is misdirected or undirected. A single stress can cause debilitation if it is so intense that the system cannot cope with it, or if the system has no mechanisms to reduce it. On the other hand a weak stress toward a desirable goal may be ignored in favor of a stronger stress toward a harmful goal. Multiple stresses may overwhelm a system even though no single stress is excessive, simply because the system cannot cope with all of the stresses at once. Finally, an undirected or generalized stress is undesirable because it provides no direction for relief.
Stress in an individual is undesirable when it produces symptoms of illness. That is why, if we focus on indicators such as high blood pressure or absence from work due to illness, stress may seem always to be harmful. Symptoms associated with small amounts of stress, however, might be such as a slight increase in pulse rate and increased attention. These are not symptoms of illness.
When a person is unable to do anything in response to stress, it tends to become excessive. Excessive stress may cause a person to persist in ineffective behavior and may interfere with behavior directed at relief of other stresses. For instance, under excessive stress people often show symptoms of confusion and inability to concentrate. Thus, stress may build on itself and create new stresses until a breakdown (illness) of the system occurs.
From the point of view of an organization, stress is undesirable when it leads to dysfunctional behavior. Absenteeism, turnover, sabotage, theft, restriction of production, withholding of ideas, poor quality of work, excessive scrap loss, low morale, backbiting, and large numbers of grievances are some of the possible consequences of stress on workers. The bad effects may be more subtle, however. For example, an employee may feel anxiety about the threat of being blamed for mistakes (i.e. anticipation of unwanted information input) and may become overly cautious. The anxiety may not be sufficient to constitute illness from the individual's point of view, because the employee can cope by playing it safe. But the organization becomes ill when decisions are not made and actions are not taken. If the boss then reacts to relieve the organization's stress by demanding that the employee be more aggressive, stress is shifted back to the employee, whose anxiety may build to an unacceptable level.
One of the difficulties with environmental stress from the organizational point of view is that its effeets are not uniform, A stressful situation that creates only moderate strain for one individual may cause high strain in another. Thus it is very difficult to manage stress in an organization in such a way that excessive strain is avoided. Often a manager does not realize that stress is excessive until someone shows symptoms of illness from it. Ideally there should be signs that could be monitored to give an early warning of stress buildup, but we are far from having an adequate set of such indicators. Some organizations monitor rates of grievance, turnover and the like, but these are gross indicators for which no clear standard exists.
Not only the amount but also the direction of stress is difficult to control. Management may institute a piece-rate system in order to take advantage of workers' income stress and motivate greater productivity. But the workers may perceive increased stress in the form of threat to their security and may respond by restricting production or forming a labor union.
The direction of stress is difficult to control because at any given moment an individual is likely to be subject to many different stresses and there are several steps between stress and the choice of behavior. Motivation involves a choice of goals and acts from among many competing alternatives, each of which may be associated in varying degrees with several different stresses (Tracy, 1984). A small change in one source of stress can sometimes produce a big change in behavior, but the outcome is somewhat unpredictable. Even a large increase in stress toward a desirable goal may have no effect, other than to increase the general level of stress in the system, if the individual's capacities are already fully engaged in coping with existing stresses.
One form of stress is clearly undesirable. That is generalized or undirected stress. There is nothing to be gained from putting pressure on a system with no clear avenue of response. Simply telling employees that they are doing a rotten job without specifying what they are doing wrong or how it could be improved is clearly an undesirable application of stress. Likewise, there is no point in creating unnecessary stress such as by giving conflicting orders or role specifications. Generalized and unnecessary stress only competes for the attention of individuals and increases the likelihood that they will not be able to cope with specific, useful stresses.
A judgment call is required when the outcome of stress is good for one system and not for another. Suppose, for instance, that a firm institutes a very successful system of incentive pay, one which substantially increases productivity, profits, and employee income, but which also causes increased fatigue, accidents, and illness among employees. Is the increased stress desirable? There is probably no simple answer to this question. Employees whose systems are better able to cope with the increased pressure may say yes, whereas those who become ill would say no. To answer the question in general we would need a formula that weighs one outcome against another and one system's values against another. How does one person's health compare with another's wealth? How does the firm's profitability compare with an individual's fatigue?
Conclusion
At this point some people might say that this paper is nothing more than common sense. It may make sense, but it is not necessarily common. For example, I have heard it argued on the floor of an academic conference that all stress is bad and should be eliminated. That makes no sense even when stress is defined as a response or a stimulus-response interaction. But certain segments of our culture seem to be dedicated to the proposition that the good life consists of wallowing listlessly in a hot tub while listening to Muzak.
If you accept that stress is not the same as distress, then stress may be desirable, undesirable, neutral, or mixed. Stress must be evaluated according to outcomes. It is desirable to the extent that it generates system-enhancing outcomes and undesirable to the extent that it generates system-debilitating outcomes. A mixed evaluation stems from the fact that outcomes have varying values for different systems and that similar systems respond differently to the same stress.
With respect to managing stress, attention must be paid to intensity, duration, and direction. Because individuals react differently, the effects of stress should be monitored through a variety of indicators. Moderate, well-directed stress may be beneficial to both the organization and its individual members.
Generalized and unnecessary stress should be reduced or avoided. Personnel and labor relations policies of a firm should be directed at eliminating unnecessary irritants such as inequitable pay and promotions, hazardous or noxious working conditions, hostile and insensitive supervisors, superfluous work rules, and boring jobs. At the same time, these policies may reasonably take advantage of such existing stresses as inadequate income, economic uncertainty, pressure from family and peers, lack of autonomy and recognition, competing interests and time demands, and the existence of meaningful work to be done. Policies may even intensify some of these pressures, for example by structuring opportunities for promotion, so long as clear avenues are provided for relief of stress through work performance. Personnel policies should also take account of individual differences by monitoring indicators of excessive stress and providing relief valves such as grievance procedures, counselling, and alternative career paths. In other words, worker stress should be managed, not eliminated.
REFERENCES
Adams, J. Stacy. Toward an understanding of inequity. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1963, 67, 422-436.
Ivancevich, John M., & Matteson, Michael T. Stress at Work: A Managerial Perspective. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1980.
Miller, James G. Living Systems. New York: MeGraw-Hill, 1978.
Selye, Hans. The Stress of Life. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956.
Selye, Hans. Stress without Distress. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1974.
Tracy, Lane. A dynamic living-systems model of work motivation. Systems Research, 1984, 1, 191-203.
Weiman, Clinton, A study of organizational stressors and the ineidence of disease/risk. Journal of Occupational Medicine, 1977, 19, 119-122.