By Jack Ruffer

Back in the dark ages when I was in graduate school I was required to research and write a mini-thesis as a requirement to complete the Behavioral Science trimester of the MBA curriculum (Managerial Psychology, Managerial Sociology, Organizational Change and Dynamics). After considerable thought and lengthy discussion with my professor the subject I selected, and he approved, was Stress Factors in the Workplace. Among the many references I reviewed were books by Dr. Hans Selye, well known for his famous and revolutionary concept of stress and considered by many to be one of the great pioneers of modern medicine on that subject. As a necessary part of my research methodology to collect data I developed a questionnaire which I distributed to a number of organizations and businesses who had expressed a willingness to participate in my study including Fluor Corp., Sharp Electronics, the students at the Marine Corps’ Middle-level Management Academy, my fellow students in graduate school, among several others. The response (the numbers of questionnaires thoughtfully completed and returned) exceeded my expectations and the results from these widely diverse groups proved surprisingly similar. The conclusions I was able to draw from my research indicated that the top three stress generators in the organizations I surveyed were:

1. Change at the top (including  reorganization).

2. Ambiguity regarding roles and responsibilities.

3. How am I doing?

Let’s take a brief look at each of these:

Change at the top. Whether we like or dislike whoever is at the top of our organization or business at least we know what to expect from them. We all tend to learn over time from trial and error and draw our own conclusions based upon those experiences. And, so it is with the people we work for. We tend to fear what (or who) we don’t know because there is a natural human tendency to fear change of any kind. It’s normal and you’re normal if change at the top causes a little anxiety in your professional life. Put in the context of the CID industry change happens all the time. Take for example the Annual Homeowners Meeting which normally includes the election of board members. New board members are usually elected to change things, and the board that follows them changes things back only to have the next board move in a whole new direction. Change brings fear, fear causes anxiety and anxiety is the outward manifestation of the medical condition Dr. Selye refers to as stress.

Included here under ‘change at the top’ is reorganization since reorganizations frequently change who’s at the top or at least who you report to. Now reorganizations are not a bad thing. They are sometimes necessary to take advantage of new business opportunities, to resize or restructure the organization to get rid of redundancies and inefficiencies, to change, as it were, the status quo. That can be a good thing. According to candidate Ronald Wilson Reagan during the 1980 presidential campaign: “Status quo,” is Latin for, “the mess we’re in.” There are times when change is absolutely essential. Sometimes though, reorganizations are done for other reasons and sometimes, unfortunately, for no apparent reason at all. "We (worked) hard ... but it seemed that every time we were beginning to (work together) we would be reorganized. I was to learn late in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization." - Petronious Arbiter, 210 B.C. As you can see, reorgs are nothing new!

This also relates to the second stress generator in that reorganizations sometimes change individual’s roles and responsibilities and it takes time to get use to the new or redesigned job, or working as a part of new team. You’re bound to be unsure of things until you’re confident you’ve got a handle on them and that won’t happen over night. And, it may take some time to feel comfortable with your new team. It’s much like starting a new job because there may be much to learn and it may be considerably different than what you’d grown use to (were comfortable with).

Ambiguity regarding role and responsibility. Every employee is entitled to know exactly what they are expected to do and how well it is to be done. This statement seems pretty basic and it is a philosophy with which few employers will argue, yet it is frequently handled in a very cursory manner. If you didn’t know what your employer expected of you, wouldn’t you be a little rattled every time that employer walked in your direction? 

Employers often assume that their employees are totally informed about their role and responsibilities. This is a very dangerous assumption that can be counterproductive, in fact, it can be disastrous. Time and again I’ve heard employers, managers, supervisors say, "We don't need job descriptions. My people know what they're supposed to be doing." That statement has been invalidated almost every time it has been made, and organizational consultants and employment law attorneys make a living out of proving it.

Usually it is the case that the employee’s perception of their role and responsibilities fails to match the employer’s perception. I have interviewed employees in-depth to get detailed outlines of their role and responsibilities as they perceive them. I have then interviewed their employers in-depth in order to gain the employer’s perception of the workers' role and responsibilities. Although similarities surfaced there were invariably significant differences. These differences in perception can have an adverse effect on an employee's performance as well as impede the attainment of the group’s business goals. Employers who fail to provide well-written, detailed, comprehensive and complete job descriptions are overlooking an important management tool.

Please don’t think of this as an insignificant issue. Remember, it ranked second on a fairly lengthy list of stress generators according to my respondents. And, by the way, a signed management contract is not a job description. It doesn’t even come close to being a job description as you’ll see in one of my upcoming columns in the HOA ManagerNewsline. 

How am I doing?  Believe it or not there are organizations which don’t provide regular feedback to their employees. They yell at them when things go wrong and call that feedback. And, in the broadest sense of the concept I guess it is feedback though in its least desirable and most unproductive form. The best feedback comes in the form of regularly scheduled written performance appraisals. Performance appraisals are essential to any organization and employees want and need the feedback. Not knowing exactly where you stand is a significant stress generator. It’s important to remember that employees don’t work for money alone. They work for recognition to fulfill their need for self-esteem as well (does anyone remember Maslow’s Hierarchy? How about the Hawthorne Studies?). Most people want to feel they are a part of “something” bigger than themselves (affiliation), that they are making a contribution to that “something,” and that their contribution is important to that “something” (both Maslow and the Hawthorne Studies again). Employees who put their shoulder to the wheel for an organization deserve to be formally acknowledged for their efforts and contributions, both on the positive and negative side of the ledger. Knowing how you’re doing goes a long way toward eliminating stress unless, of course, you’re not doing well and that’s a subject all by itself for another column in some future edition of HOA ManagerNewsline.

Employers, it’s your responsibility to recognize that these stress generators, among others, create problems in the workplace and it’s incumbent upon you do whatever is prudent and necessary to manage wisely and thoughtfully thereby limiting the ever-present anxiety associated with stress generators of any kind. That is not to say that you and your staff should resign prior to every annual meeting or refuse to consider reorganization when it is called for but there are ways to manage and minimize, or at least ameliorate, associated stress and there are ways to manage and turn a blind eye to the impact on your organization and the people you care about. The choice is yours!