CASE: GOLDMAN SACHS Forjuniorlevel employees who are trying to impress higherups and secure themselves a very lucrative career in the investment m banking and nancial services industry, the demands and stress levels can be especially intense. The responsibility, workload, and time pressure can lead to allnighters and the feeling of being overwhelmed, and, in some cases, the consequences can be deadly. In fact, there have been wellpublicized cases where juniorlevel employees have committed suicide because they couldn't cope with the demands of theirjobs. As an example, 22yearold Sarvshreshth Gupta, a Goldman Sachs analyst, killed himself byjumping from an apartlnent building into a parking lot due to stress. This occurred just after Gupta told his father that \"it is too much.\" In response to events such as this, and with knowledge of the negative impact of stress on job performance and the increasing costs associated with stressrelated mental health disability leaves and other stressrelated health claims, Goldman Sachs decided to make signicant changes to its employee wellness programs. One key part of this initiative included a program that helps employees develop resilience. Whereas conventional wellness programs help employees navigate and cope with the demands they are currently facing, the Goldman Sachs resilience program is meant to be preventive. The idea is to foster energy and readiness so that employees can take on highly demanding tasks and to adapt to unforeseen change with condence. By shifting the emphasis from helping employees deal with their stress so they can cope, to helping employees develop resilience to stress so that they can perform optimally in demanding work environments, the stigma of participation has been reduced. Driven investment bankers might not care much for a program that reduces their cortisol levels and blood pressure, but the idea of building a competency that allows them to perform at their peak is quite appealing to them. Goldman Sachs' resilience program involves lectures and oneonone coaching on an ongoing basis and quarterly resilience training for managers. Every other year, a \"Resilience Week\" is held in which resiliencerelated activities and presentations take place. A core element of the resilience program involves mindfulness training. Workshops and other instruction is delivered to help employees become more alert and aware of the present moment, and to be less judgmental. The idea is that these capabilities allow people to think more clearly and to experience calmness and happiness in highly demanding situations. Although some might be tempted to dismiss training in resilience and mindfulness as fluffy managerial fads, employees believe that the program has been benecial and are more happy with the company. 5.1 Identify and describe the types of demands that Goldman Sachs\" employees experience in their jobs. Explain why these employees can be motivated and committed to the company while also experiencing a great deal of stress. 5.2 Describe how Goldman Sachs\" resilience training might inuence different parts of the stress process as it is described in this chapter. 5.3 Identify and describe potential limitations of Goldman Sachs\" resilience training program. How can these limitations be mitigated? WHY ARE SOME EMPLOYEES MORE "STRESSED" THAN OTHERS? Stress in the workplace has been widely studied by scholars for over a century and there are many different theories that outline causes and consequences of stress." However, to understand what it means to feel "stressed," it's helpful to consider the transactional theory of stress. This theory explains how stressors are perceived and appraised, as well as how people respond to those perceptions and appraisals." When people first encounter stressors, the process of primary appraisal is triggered. ' As shown in G Figure 5-1, primary appraisal occurs as people evaluate the significance and the meaning of the stressor they're confronting. Here, people first consider whether a demand causes them to feel stressed, and if it does, they consider the implications of the stressor in terms of their personal goals and overall well-being. FIGURE 5-1 Transactional Theory of Stress Stressors Hindrance Challenge . Role conflict . Time pressure Work . Role ambiguity . Work complexity . Role overload . Work responsibility STRESS . Daily hassles Primary Appraisal Is this stressful? . Work-family Family time Secondary Appraisal conflict demands How can I cope? Nonwork . Negative life Personal events development . Financial . Positive life events uncertaintyAs an example of a primary appraisal, consider the job of a cashier at a well-run convenience store. In this store, cashiers engage in routine sales transactions with customers. Customers walk in the store and select merchandise, and the cashiers on duty ring up the sale and collect the money. Under normal day-to-day circumstances at this store, well-trained cashiers would not likely feel that these transactions are overly taxing or exceed their capacity, so those cashiers would not likely appraise these job demands as stressful. Job demands that tend not to be appraised as stressful are called benign job demands. However, consider how convenience store cashiers would react in a different store in which the cash register and credit card Page 126 machine break down often and without warning. The cashiers who work at this store would likely view their job as being more stressful. This is because they would have to diagnose and fix problems with equipment while dealing with customers who are growing more and more impatient. Furthermore, the cashiers in this store might appraise the stressful situation as one that unnecessarily prevents them from achieving their goal of being viewed as an effective employee in the eyes of the customers and the store manager. Finally, consider a third convenience store in which the cashiers' workload is higher due to additional responsibilities that include receiving merchandise from vendors, taking physical inventory, and training new employees. In this store, the cashiers may appraise their jobs as stressful because of the higher workload and the need to balance different priorities. However, in contrast to the cashiers in the previous example, cashiers in this store might appraise these demands as providing an opportunity to learn and demonstrate the type of competence that often is rewarded with satisfying promotions and pay raises. TYPES OF STRESSORS 5.2 What are the four main types of stressors? In the previous two examples. the cashiers were confronted with demands that a primary appraisal would label as "stressful" However. the specific demands in the two examples have an important difference. Having to deal with equipment breakdowns or unhappy customers is not likely to be perceived by most employees as having implications that are personally beneficial; in fact, the opposite is likely to be true. These kinds of stressors are called hindrance stressors. or stressful demands that people tend to perceive as hindering their progress toward personal accomplishments or goal attainment." Hindrance stressors most often trigger negative emotions such as anxiety and anger. 10 In contrast, having to deal with additional responsibilities is likely to be perceived by most employees as having long-term benefits. These kinds of stressors are called challenge stressors, or stressful demands that people tend to perceive as opportunities for learning, growth. and achievement." Although challenge stressors can be exhausting, they often trigger positive emotions such as pride and enthusiasm. Figure 5-1 lists a number of hindrance and challenge stressors, some of which are experienced at work and some of which are experienced outside of work. 14 WORK HINDRANCE STRESSORS The various roles we fill at work are the source of different types of work-related hindrance stressors. " One type of work-related hindrance stressor is role conflict, which refers to conflicting expectations that other people may have of us. " As an example of role conflict that occurs from incompatible demands within a single role that a person may hold, consider the job of a call center operator. People holding these jobs are expected to communicate with as many people as possible over a given time period. The expectation is that the call center operator will spend as little time as possible with the people on the other end of the line. At the same time, however, operators are also expected to be responsive to the questions and concerns raised by the people they talk with. Because effectiveness in this aspect of the job may require a great deal of time, call center operators are put in a position in which they simply cannot meet both types of expectations.Role ambiguity refers to a lack of information about what needs to be done in a role, as well as unpredictability regarding the consequences of performance in that role. "Employees are sometimes asked to work on projects for which they're given very few instructions or guidelines about how things are supposed to be done. In these cases, employees may not know how much money they can spend on the project, how long it's supposed to take, or what exactly the finished product is supposed to look like. Role ambiguity is often experienced among new employees who haven't been around long enough to receive instructions from supervisors or observe and model the role behaviors of more senior colleagues. Students sometimes experience role ambiguity when professors remain vague about particular course requirements of how grading is going to be performed. In such cases, the class becomes stressful because it's not quite clear what it takes to get a good grade. Role overload occurs when the number of demanding roles a person holds is so high that the person simply cannot perform Page 127 some or all of the roles effectively. " Role overload as a source of stress is becoming very prevalent for employees in many different industries, and in fact, studies have shown that this source of stress is more prevalent than both role conflict and role ambiguity."For example, the workload for executives and managers who work in investment banking, consulting, and law is so high that 80-hour workweeks are becoming the norm. " Although this trend may not be surprising to some of you, people holding these jobs also indicate that they would not be able to effectively complete most of the work that's required of them, even if they worked twice as many hours. One final type of work-related hindrance stressor, daily hassles. refers to the relatively minor day-to-day demands that get in the way of accomplishing the things that we really want to accomplish. "Examples of hassles include having to deal with unnecessary paperwork, office equipment malfunctions, annoying interactions with abrasive coworkers, and useless communications. Although these examples of daily hassles may seem relatively minor, taken together, they can be extremely time-consuming and stressful. Indeed, according to one survey. 40 percent of executives spend somewhere between a half-day and a full day each week on communications that are not useful or necessary.- In addition to the role conflict created in trying to balance responsiveness to customers with high call volume, call center operators also experience daily hassles. They have to deal with poor connections, language difficulties. rudeness, and questions for which they are ill prepared to answer. Thery Way Bend Image LLCWORK CHALLENGE STRESSORS One type of work-related challenge stressor is time pressure-a strong sense that the amount of time you have to do a task is not quite enough. " Although most people appraise situations with high time pressure as rather stressful, they also tend to appraise these situations as more challenging than hindering. Time pressure demands tend to be viewed as something worth striving for because success in meeting such demands can be intrinsically satisfying. As an example of this positive effect of high time pressure, consider Michael Jones, an architect at a top New York firm. His job involves overseeing multiple projects with tight deadlines, and as a result, he has to work at a hectic pace. Although Jones readily acknowledges that his job is stressful, he also believes that the outcome of having all the stress is satisfying. Jones is able to see the product of his labor over the Manhattan skyline, which makes him feel like he's a part of something. Work complexity refers to the degree to which the requirements of the work-in terms of knowledge. skills, and abilities-tax or exceed the capabilities of the person who is responsible for performing the work. "As an example of work complexity, consider the nature of employee development practices that organizations use to train future executives and organizational leaders. In many cases, these practices involve giving people jobs that require skills and knowledge that the people do not yet possess. A successful marketing manager who is being groomed for an executive-level position may. for example, be asked to manage a poorly performing production facility with poor labor relations in a country halfway around the world. Although these types of developmental experiences tend to be quite stressful, managers report that being stretched beyond their capacity is well worth the associated discomfort. Work responsibility refers to the nature of the obligations that a person has toward others. "Generally speaking, the level of Page 128 responsibility in a job is higher when the number, scope, and importance of the obligations in that job are higher. As an example. the level of work responsibility for an air traffic controller, who may be accountable for the lives of tens of thousands of people every day. is very high." Controllers understand that if they make an error while directing an aircraft-for example, saying "turn left" instead of "turn right"-hundreds of people can die in an instant. Although controller errors that result in midair collisions and crashes are extremely rare, the possibility weighs heavily on the minds of controllers. especially after they lose "the picture" (controller jargon for the mental representation of an assigned airspace and all the aircraft within it) due to extreme workloads, a loss of concentration, or equipment malfunctions. As with people's reactions to time pressure and work complexity, people tend to evaluate demands associated with high responsibility as both stressful and potentially positive. The job of an air traffic controller is stressful because of the challenging demands. In particular, air traffic controllers know that during each shift they work, they'll be responsible for ensuring that thousands of people arrive at their destinations safely and on timeA third type of nonwork hindrance stressor is financial uncertainty. This type of stressor refers to conditions that create Page 129 uncertainties with regard to the loss of livelihood, savings, or the ability to pay expenses. This type of stressor is highly relevant during recessions or economic downturns. When people have concerns about losing their jobs. homes, and life savings because of economic factors that are beyond their control. it's understandable why nearly half of the respondents to a recent survey indicated that stress was making it hard for them to do their jobs. $6 NONWORK CHALLENGE STRESSORS Of course. the nonwork domain can be a source of challenge stressors as well." Family time demands refer to the time that a person commits to participate in an array of family activities and responsibilities. Specific examples of family time demands include time spent involved in family pursuits such as traveling. attending social events and organized activities, hosting parties, and planning and making home improvements. Examples of personal development activities include participation in formal education programs, music lessons sports-related training. hobby-related self-education, participation in local government, or volunteer work. Finally. [ Table 5-2 includes some positive life events that are sources of nonwork challenge stressors. For example, marriage, the addition of a new family member. and graduating from school are stressful in their own way. However, each is associated with more positive, rather than negative, emotions. HOW DO PEOPLE COPE WITH STRESSORS? 5.3 How do individuals cope with stress? According to the transactional theory of stress, after people appraise a stressful demand, they ask themselves. "What should I Page 130 do?" and "What can I do?" to deal with this situation. These questions, which refer to the secondary appraisal shown in L' Figure 5-1, center on the issue of how people cope with the various stressors they face. "Coping refers to the behaviors and thoughts that people use to manage both the stressful demands they face and the emotions associated with those stressful demands." As " Table 5-3 illustrates, coping can involve many different types of activities, and these activities can be grouped into four broad categories based on two dimensions." The first dimension refers to the method of coping (behavioral versus cognitive), and the second dimension refers to the focus of coping (problem solving versus regulation of emotions). TABLE 5-3 Examples of Coping Strategies PROBLEM-FOCUSED EMOTION-FOCUSED Behavioral Methods Working harder Engaging in alternative activities Seeking assistance Seeking support Acquiring additional resources Venting anger Cognitive Methods Strategizing Avoiding, distancing, and ignoring Self-motivating Looking for the positive in the negative Changing priorities Reappraising Source: Adapted from Latack, J. C, and S. J. Havlovic. "Coping with Job Stress: A Conceposl Evaluation Framework for Coping Measures." Journal of Organizational Behavior 13 (19921: pp. 479-508.NONWORK HINDRANCE STRESSORS Although the majority of people in the United States spend more time at the office than anywhere else. "there are a number of stressful demands outside of work that have implications for managing behavior in organizations. " In essence. stressors experienced outside of work may have effects that "spill over" to affect the employee at work. "One example of nonwork hindrance stressors is work-family con flict, a special form of role conflict in which the demands of a work role hinder the fulfillment of the demands of a family role (or vice versa). "More generally, work-family conflict can be thought of as something that upsets the balance of our work and nonwork lives. We most often think of cases in which work demands hinder effectiveness in the family context, termed "work to family conflict." For example. a store manager who has to deal with lots of hindrances at work may have trouble switching off the frustration after arriving home, and as a consequence, become irritable and impatient with family and friends. However, work-family conflict can occur in the other direction as well. For example, "family to work conflict" would occur if a salesperson experiencing the stress of marital conflict comes to work harboring emotional pain and negative feelings, which makes it difficult to interact with customers effectively. Although these examples illustrate how work-family conflict can have negative consequences, it is also important to recognize that these negative consequences can, in turn, create even more work-family conflict." For example. the store manager who becomes impatient with family and friends due to hindrances at work may get into stressful conflicts at home, which in turn, may makes it even more difficult to deal with hindrances at work the next day. We should also note that although there are many benefits to having an active and well-rounded life. it's important to recognize that both work to family conflict and family to work conflict tend to be higher for employees who are strongly embedded in their work organizations and their communities " Nonwork hindrance stressors also come in the form of negative life events. " Research has revealed that a number of life events are perceived as quite stressful, particularly when they result in significant changes to a person's life. " Table 5-2 provides a listing of some commonly experienced life events, along with a score that estimates how stressful each event is perceived to be. As the table reveals, many of the most stressful life events do not occur at work. Rather, they include family events such as the death of a spouse or close family member, a divorce or marital separation, a jail term, or a personal illness. These events would be classified as hindrance stressors because they hinder the ability to achieve life goals and are associated with negative emotions. TABLE 5-2 Stressful Life Events LIFE EVENT STRESS SCORE LIFE EVENT STRESS SCORE Death of a spouse 100 Trouble with in-laws 29 Divorce 73 Outstanding achievement 28 Marital separation 65 Begin or end school 26 Jail term 63 Change in living conditions 25 Death of close family member 63 Trouble with boss 23 Personal illness 53 Change in work hours 20 Marriage 50 Change in residence 20 Fired at w 47 Change in schools 20 Marital reconciliation 45 Change in social activities 18 Retirement 45 Change in sleeping habits 16 Pregnancy 40 Change in family get-togethers 15 Gain of new family member 39 Change in eating habits 15 Death of close friend 37 Vacations 13 Change in occupation 36 The holiday season 12 Child leaving home 29 Minor violations of the law 11