Strategic Stress Management: An Organisational Approach

Citation

Short, E. (2001), "Strategic Stress Management: An Organisational Approach", Personnel Review, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 240-246. https://doi.org/10.1108/pr.2001.30.2.240.1

The structure of this book is designed to provide the reader with a grasp of the major models that dominate stress research, and a perspective of the current legal developments of stress as a personal injury. In addition to this, practical methods are outlined that could be adopted by employers in response to employee stress or simply to optimise health in their organisations.

This book is responding to the current motivation amongst employers to combat work stress, which itself is a reaction to the growth of workplace injury claims being initiated by employees. Discussion of the status of stress in the law brings up to date the authors’ and others’ work in this area (for example: Earnshaw and Cooper, 1994, 1996; Napier and Wheat, 1995). A complex picture of stress emerges, as no single piece of legislation exists regarding the prevention of stress in the workplace or the management of stress at work. However, by reviewing the judgments from notable cases the implications for case law are, to some extent, clarified. In summary, the authors indicate that litigation is usually successful when the employee can establish that they have suffered a stress‐induced illness and that a link can be demonstrated between the alleged stressful work condition and the behavioural change or illness. In addition to this in order to demonstrate the negligence of the employer it must be proven that the damage suffered by the employee was foreseeable and that the employer was unreasonable in their failure to satisfy a duty of care to the employee.

There follows a brief outline of the Health and Safety at Work guidelines that employers should follow in terms of their duty of care and policies for stress management. Findings from successful litigation also inform a brief discussion of employer liability insurance. This section of the book is up to date and brings together the separate strands of legislation and case law to provide an integrated and sensible account of employer responsibility.

The book contains an historical account of the development of stress models and the interactive model of stress is recognised to be the most appropriate model by which to investigate and respond to stress. The interactive model suggests that stress is a subjective experience within the individual when the demands of the environment appear to exceed their own ability to meet them. This means that stress is an interaction of the individual’s own skills, resource networks and experience with the external demands placed upon them. However it is made clear to the reader that instead of paying attention to organisational sources of stress and mediators of the stress response, organisations often lag behind current thinking by viewing stress not as an outcome of an organisational process but as existing independently within individuals. Stress management programmes are often developed on this basis, and therefore can be ineffective.

Cooper developed arguably the best known and most used model of occupational stress in the field of occupational psychology (Cooper and Marshall, 1978; Cooper 1986). In this book the authors present the reader with an easily accessible version of this organisational approach. The authors suggest three main issues must be identified and understood in order to provide an effective form of stress management. First, sources of stress are considered. Cooper and Marshall’s model (1978) and Cooper et al.’s (1988) popular instrument, the Occupational Stress Indicator, inform the six categories of sources of work stress listed in this book, which range from stress associated with the organisational structure and climate to stressors associated with the home‐work interface. These types of stress are discussed in a way that equips the reader with an understanding of how to identify hotspots in their own organisation. Overall the breadth of possible stressors reflects the consensus of research in this area, although admittedly the authors themselves have provided much of that research. The second issue refers to the moderators and mediators of the stress response. This is discussed briefly. Finally the outcomes or manifestations of exposure to a source of stress are discussed at an individual and organisational level. The measurement of these areas form the basis of a stress audit, which is otherwise described by the authors as a psychological risk assessment.

The book’s final two chapters consolidate on the theory of the previous chapters by providing practical instruction of how to develop and conduct a stress audit. Finally a comprehensive system of stress management is described that can respond to all levels of the model of organisational stress proposed by the authors. Stress management can be directed to the stressor, to educating the response of individuals or responding to the actual symptoms of stress that are manifested. These are known as the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. The authors offer options for intervention at all levels and offer evidence of the effectiveness of such strategies. However the general consensus (Parkes and Sparkes, 1999) of the effectiveness of many interventions is that the evidence remains unclear, partly due to the disparity of the research strategies used to investigate them.

In conclusion this books provides an up to date and precise picture of the status of stress in law, it also provides an effective practical guide for the investigation of organisational stress and accessible proactive methods of maximising performance and health in the workplace. The discussion of theory within the book provides the reader with little about the nature of stress that cannot already be found elsewhere. However it provides a useful and accessible distillation for employers, and those who practice or study in the field of human resource management.