Introduction

Many people in organizations face a variety of stressors, both within and external to the work environment. Both distress and eustress can affect how individuals behave and perform as well as affect how an overall business unit functions. Effective managers and leaders must understand sources of positive and negative stress, as well as their consequences. They must also understand how to create and implement interventions that can help individuals to manage their individual stress and reduce the negative impact of stressors in the work environment. Additionally, there may be ways to enhance the positive outcomes of eustress. In this group project you will work with others to identify key sources of stress, both positive and negative, for individuals and work units. You will then create action plans that managers can implement to lessen the negative effects of stress and to enhance the positive influences whenever possible.

Purpose

This project is an experiential activity that will enable you to identify sources of positive and negative stress and to create solutions or practices to manage stress. you will assume the role of a management consultant assigned to implement stress management interventions. You will need to present yourself as a knowledgeable expert, communicate persuasively, and find workable interventions that you could present to senior executives.

Skills

In this project, you will have the opportunity to practice valuable managerial skills, including:

• Oral communication: Speaking clearly and persuasively to establish your own position; repeating back to demonstrate your understanding of another person's position.
• Analytical thinking and problem solving: Resolving an issue by defining it, collecting and analyzing information, and using logic and judgment to arrive at a solution.
• Information technology: Using current technologies in business and management contexts.
• Interpersonal relations and teamwork: Working effectively with others; cooperating to produce creative solutions and attain goals.
• Application of knowledge: Translating knowledge of business and management into practice.
• Decision making: Making sound decisions and exercising good judgment under uncertainty.
• Stress management: Understanding sources of stress, their impact, and possible interventions.
• Negotiation: Effectively exploring alternatives and positions to reach workable solutions that gain all parties' support and acceptance.

Instructions

In this activity, assume the role of a management consultant. The COO of your company has noticed that turnover and sick days are increasing, health costs are going up, and morale and efficiency are dropping. After examining the results of the annual employee surveys she has noted a spike in employee reports of stress, challenges with work-life balance, and a drop in employee satisfaction. Follow-up research has further highlighted the role of stress in the problems the organization is encountering. Your COO needs your guidance to identify potential sources of stressors, determine how they might influence individual and work unit functioning, and to propose some possible interventions.

Before you start your research and propose solutions, you should add some realism to the activity. Decide what type of business or industry your organization is in. Choose a real organization in an industry that interests you and it should have a lot of information that is publicly available about it. Once you've selected an organization, you can imagine the types of stressors that might exist for individuals and work units. Some stressors are general and will apply to people almost everywhere but other stressors will be unique to the industry, organization, and even geographic location of the work unit. You probably will have to make assumptions and take liberties in imagining possible sources of stressors because typically you won't have real data to inform you of the actual stressors.

You may want to use the project tracking tool to set milestones, such as:

1. Choosing the organization and identifying potential positive and negative stressors.
2. Creating a table of positive and negative outcomes for individuals and work units linked to the stressors you've identified.
3. Ranking the importance of different stressors.
4. Brainstorming possible interventions.
5. Selecting two or three interventions to propose to the executive board.

ACTIVITY STEPS

Step 1: Choose an Organization

Choose and organization and brainstorm the types of stress its employees organization might experience.

Step 2: Identify Sources of Stress

Decide how you will go about identifying possible sources of stressors and their impact. You could do this by reviewing the chapter, examining research on stress in the workplace, reading articles about your chosen organization, reviewing blogs or other sources of information about workplace stressors, and reading about how global attitudes and values vary, especially with regard to stress. As you work on this, you should strive to tailor some component of your solutions to the organization you are examining. For example, some sources of stress in the hotel and restaurant industry are likely to be different from sources of stress in the automotive manufacturing or pharmaceutical industries. They may also vary based on the key roles performed in different organizations or across different geographic regions of the organization.

Step 3: Analyze

After you've gathered all of the information about the organization and sources of stress that you need to consider, analyze the information you've found on stress and its effects. Are there general categories of stressors? In what ways do positive and negative stressors differ in cause and impact? Are individuals affected by stress outside the work environment and can anything be done about that? Are there stressors that are a result of the workplace environment? Rank order the top two or three stressors you want to target for an intervention.

Step 4: Create Possible Interventions

Think creatively and practically about what an organization could do about the stressors you've identified. Is there anything an organization or manager can do to help individuals manage their stress? Is there anything an organization or manager can do to reduce stress in the work environment? What does research say about possible solutions? What can be done? What should be done? What is practical or reasonable for an organization to try to do about stress?

Step 5: Prioritize

Sources of stress and their outcomes will vary by organization and there is no single right or wrong way to address the issues related to stress. Once you have a list of possible interventions, think about the pros and cons of the solutions you've identified. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each approach? Prioritize the top two or three interventions that you've considered.

Step 6: Make a Presentation

Finally, make a 5-slide (PLUS title and sources slides, so 7 total) presentation that presents your proposal. You should communicate the following:

a) a description of your organization;

b) different types of stress that are likely to exist in the organization;

c) the impact of these stressors on individual and organizational outcomes; and

d) ideas for one or two potential interventions that can be put in place to address issues related to stress.

Also include a set of citations to go with the presentation for the sources of information you've gathered.