Work-related stress and organizational level interventions - addressing the problem at source

Intermediate Diploma Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Business economics - Business Ethics, Corporate Ethics, grade: 1,3, University of Zurich (Institut für Organisation und Unternehmenstheorien), language: English, abstract: Business has become dramatically dynamic and competitive during the past decades. Globally, organizations turn up the pressures on workers and set aside health concerns to remain profitable, commonly resulting in significant employee stress. Surveys in business publications regularly report alarming statistics about the health consequences of work-related stress, which is causally related to a vast and varied range of negative impacts on employees, organizations and society. Numerous studies show that job stress has escalated progressively over the past decades. Therefore, stress prevention at the organizational level is necessary in our fast moving business world, since it addresses the problem of work-related stress at source rather than curing its symptoms. I introduce the Management Standards approach by the British Health and Safety Executive (HSE), as it recommends a practical three-phase approach to stress prevention, consisting of risk assessments, appropriate interventions and subsequent evaluations. The six Management Standards (MS) offer guidelines for organizations in the domains Demands, Control, Support, Relationships, Role and Change to comply with their legal duties under the law, namely to ensure the health of workers. The suggestions on what can be done to tackle organizational stress are generally instructive and intended specifically for employers of today`s globalized organizations. By analyzing case studies in the MS` domains Demands, Control and Change that describe socio-technical and psychosocial interventions in workplaces, I find evidence in support of the hypothesis that reducing the workload of employees, introducing flexible work schedules and engaging in intense communication during times of change are effective in reducing work-related stress in employees. Besides other beneficial effects, these interventions have the potential to increase job satisfaction, reduce adrenalin levels and increase performance efficiency of workers. I suggest that introducing regular risk assessments, rewarding good practice, providing specific assistance for small and medium sized enterprises and increasing the level of research activity in the area of occupational stress are strategies by which policymakers can encourage organizations to implement stress interventions.