Coping with stress

Coping with stress

Would you recognise the symptoms of stress in yourself or others? Do you know what causes stress? Stress is one of the major causes of absenteeism through ill-health

If you put a little bit of pressure on the end of a strip or wood or metal it will usually bend. Let it go and it will spring back into shape. But push it too far and it can break. You have put the material under different degrees of stress. Some materials will accept more stress than others. Some can be bent double and spring back without a problem. Some will snap with the slightest pressure. People are the same. Put them under a degree of pressure and they will spring back easily, but push them too far and they will break. Just as different materials respond differently to pressure, people will respond differently as well. Some seem to relish pressure, soaking it up like a clock spring, easily able to unwind. Others are far less able to cope with any pressure. You need to understand what stress is, what effect it has on people and what causes it. Then you will be better able to recognise stress and take steps to minimise it and its effects.

Published by the Institute of Leadership & Management and QMD Ltd © 2007 Copied under licence

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Coping with stress

What is stress? You may believe that you are a modern human, but beneath the surface you are still primitive, programmed to live in a wild and savage environment, struggling to survive from one day to the next. Millions of years of evolution ensured that you would respond to any threat in one of two ways - by attacking or by running away. This fight or flight response to a threat is instinctive and so it is largely outside our conscious control. The body responds to threats by producing adrenalin. In situations where a person’s life (or the life of a loved one) is threatened, it’s amazing what the surge of adrenalin can help someone to do. People have jumped five-bar gates, coped with major traumas like the loss of a limb or lifted huge weights off trapped family members. The trouble is that evolution moves slowly and hasn’t caught up with the rapid changes in the way we live. Our bodies deal with the pressure of work or the congestion in commuter traffic in the same way as they learnt to deal with wild animals on the savannah - by producing adrenalin and preparing for a fight or a flight. You may sometimes wish that you could settle disagreements at work or deal with that awkward customer with a sharp-edged spear, or simply by running away, but that option isn’t available. Our bodies tense up ready for a physical reaction but that isn’t possible. Instead, we bottle it up. That’s stress.

Case Study Paul leads a team of customer service agents for a discount airline. If people have missed their flights, or the flight has been cancelled or delayed, or they need to change their flight details, they call up members of his team. Some people get very upset if they can’t get a refund or change to their flight. Usually this is because they have bought tickets which are non-refundable and unchangeable - which is why they are so cheap. This reaction can cause customers to become angry and aggressive, and team members sometimes have great difficulty in holding their own tempers. Sarah, one of Paul’s team members walks across to him one day, her face flushed red with anger. ”I can’t believe some people” she says. “He turned up for the flight 20 minutes before take-off and then com(Continued on page 3)

Published by the Institute of Leadership & Management and QMD Ltd © 2007 Copied under licence

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Coping with stress plained because check-in was closed. He was so rude. He treated me like I was dirt. It’s a good job he wasn’t in front of me. I think I would have strangled him.” Paul opens his draw and pulls out a rag doll and a big hat pin. He puts the doll on his desk and gives Sarah the hat pin. “Go on then, stick the pin in him.” Sarah rather half-heartedly stabs at the doll. “No, not like that” says Paul. “Remember, he feels every prick. Make him suffer.” Sarah starts stabbing the doll, harder and harder and the rest of the team cheer her on. Eventually she stops, still red in the face, but her anger having given way to laughter and gasps for breath.

We’re not recommending voodoo as the solution to stress, but what Paul did was one way of relieving the effects of stress.

Exercise What do you think Paul was trying to do by getting Sarah to stick pins in the rag doll?

Stress is caused by conflicts between our emotional and physical reaction to situations, on one hand, and the limited ways we can respond to these pressures on the other. Because we can’t easily work off the physical reactions in our bodies, we have to suppress them. Suppressing them means that we keep the natural response of our bodies under control and don’t allow them to express themselves physically. What Paul did was to give Sarah an opportunity to react physically and work off the tension she felt. It’s a bit like a safety valve letting off steam in a pressure cooker when the pressure gets too high. The pin and the rag doll are Sarah’s safety valve.

Published by the Institute of Leadership & Management and QMD Ltd © 2007 Copied under licence

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Coping with stress

What causes stress? We’ve seen that stress occurs when we are put under pressure but can’t relieve that pressure physically, in the way that our bodies are programmed to respond. But what sort of pressure causes us to feel stress? Typical pressures at work include: Having more work to do than there is time to complete it, causing people to suffer conflicting pressures. They are unable to decide what to do and often finish up not doing anything properly. Lacking the skills needed to undertake the work, so someone struggles to do the job well and knows that they can’t, again causing internal conflict. Disagreements between team members that aren’t resolved so that people are permanently tense because their bodies are preparing them to fight. Dealing with difficult people who argue or are threatening, causing the strong ’fight or flight’ response that has to be ignored. Somebody else doing their job poorly, creating extra work for others or making it difficult for them to do their own jobs well. Equipment not working properly, causing delays and frustration. Constant interruptions, causing delays and making it hard to concentrate on own job.

Case Study Marie leads the administration team working for a small group of residential homes for young adults with severe learning difficulties. Her team processes payments and payroll, amongst other things. Many of the care staff work irregular hours and the home managers are responsible for recording their weekly hours on time sheets and sending this data to the administration team for them to ensure that people get paid correctly. Kate, who is responsible for the payroll is always complaining about (Continued on page 5)

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Coping with stress having the data late or staff complaining that they have been underpaid because the data is wrong. As she approaches the time for the monthly pay run on the computer she gets more and more ratty with the rest of the team and is very snappy when she answers the ‘phone. Tom, one of the home managers has complained to Marie about the tone Kate has used in one of her emails - he says it was really quite rude. Marie tries to explain that Kate is under a lot of pressure and that she isn’t helped by not always being given the information she needs. Tom says that he has far more important things to do than fill in forms to keep Kate happy!

Do you or members of your team have problems like these? Do any members of your team not get on, or do you have to deal with difficult people outside the team. Is your workload too high for you to cope with it successfully, or are you asked to do things at short notice or that you aren’t really trained to do? Does your software crash on you or machinery often breakdown? If you or members of your team feel under constant pressure from these sort of events, then you may start to feel stress.

Recognising stress Stress affects people in many ways, but the symptoms tend to include: getting very anxious about possible events; regular headaches or other physical pains; mood swings - sharp changes from gaiety to anger and back again, for example; bursting into tears over small things; becoming obsessive over aspects of the work; frequent lateness and absenteeism. Remember, these are the symptoms of the stress that someone is feeling. In really bad cases it can lead to extreme depression, a fear of meeting people or going out and complete physical collapse. Stress is one of the major causes of illness at work and absenteeism. It’s important to recognise these symptoms early and do something about it before it gets more serious. Even in mild forms it reduces people’s efficiency and effectiveness, adding to the organisation’s costs (as well as making people unhappy). Published by the Institute of Leadership & Management and QMD Ltd © 2007 Copied under licence

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Coping with stress

Dealing with stress The best cure for stress is to remove the cause; if that’s not possible, then you might be able to help people cope better with the pressures that are causing stress. If neither of these is possible, then you may be able to help people manage their stress better, to reduce its effect.

⇒ Remove the cause of stress This is always the best solution, but not always the easiest thing to do. If you can identify what is causing you or a team member to feel stressed, you may be able to remove or at least reduce the pressure. This could mean: Planning work better or getting help to cope with extra workloads. Receiving training to improve the skills needed to do particular tasks. Resolving disagreements between team members or arranging for a transfer to another team. Talking to your manager about the problem of dealing with difficult people and getting extra training or security. Discussing the problem and ways of resolving others’ poor performance with their team leaders or with your manager. Discussing with your manager ways of improving equipment problems, such as better maintenance or upgrading. Becoming better at saying ‘no’ to people who interrupt or distract you. Many of the other BS2 sessions deal with these ways of resolving the problems that lead to people feeling stressed.

⇒ Coping better with the causes of stress Sometimes you can’t do anything tom reduce the pressures that lead to people feeling stress. You may have an unpredictable workload that occasionally puts you and the team under pressure, or use software programme that can’t be upgraded. Poor quality work by others can’t be improved, or disagreements can’t be resolved. If this is the case, then you should look at ways of reducing the pressure rather than expecting to eliminate it.

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Coping with stress If workloads can vary without any warning, then prepare a plan for when you are under pressure, so that you feel some sense of control over events. For example, you could agree that team members should have a rota for working overtime to deal with the problem, or some of them are taken off normal work to clear the extra tasks, whilst the rest share out the standard wok between them. Pay attention to the situations in which equipment breaks down and see if you can predict better when it may occur and so stop using it for a period. You might be able to schedule work tasks so that people who don’t get on are kept apart as much as possible, and if you have to deal with difficult people discuss with your team how best to do it and support each other so that people don’t feel exposed. You may also be able to help each other with skills problems, asking anybody who is better at doing the work to coach the others to help them improve.

⇒ Manage stress better If it’s impossible to remove or reduce the causes of stress, then you or your team members should learn how to manage your stress better. You should always get professional help from your GP or your employer’s welfare services if you or a team member is suffering severely from stress. However, for milder stress, then you can do something yourself to help yourself or help others. First, you should recognise when you are starting to feel stressed. It could be a feeling of tenseness, or you may get irritated easily or some feel some other emotional state (feeling despair or anger, getting tearful easily). You may start to feel a headache or some muscular pain brought on by physical tenseness. When you or team members recognise the signs, you should stop what you are doing as soon as you can and (if possible) go somewhere quiet to sit, in comfort. If you can’t go somewhere else, ask people to leave you alone for a few minutes. Shut your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. Try to breathe deeply and regularly; this will help you to relax because your attention is focussed on you rather than the cause of the stress. Relax yourself, starting with your toes and working up your feet, legs, hands, arms, torso and neck. Consciously relax your muscles, as far as you can, keeping your eyes shut the whole time. After a few minutes, open your eyes and prepare yourself to return to your work. Move your head, then your arms, your torso, your feet and ankles, then your legs. Finally, walk around briefly to ‘wake yourself up’.

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Coping with stress This simple stress management technique can help to reduce the physical and emotional effect of stress. Once you have used it, you will find that pressure seems less acute than it did before. You won’t have removed the cause, but the effect won’t be as bad. Just remember these six steps: 1. Sit somewhere comfortable 2. Shut your eyes and focus on breathing regularly 3. Relax your body, from your toes to your neck 4. Keep still for a few minutes, breathing regularly 5. ‘Unrelax’, working your muscles one by one and opening your eyes 6. Take a brief stroll to get your body back into action If you or any team members are having to rely more and more on relieving the symptoms of stress, then you really need to talk to your line manager about doing something about the causes. If you find it impossible to relive the pressure causing stress then talk to your or your HR Department about the services they can offer to help you overcome the effects of stress. If the organisation doesn’t have its own services, HR specialists should be able to advise you what is available locally and how to access them. If they can’t help you, or if the organisation doesn’t have a specialist HR function, then don’t be afraid to approach your GP or your trade union, if you are a member of one. Leaving stress untreated causes people’s work performance to deteriorate, absenteeism and can lead to people taking legal action against their employer. Allowing employees to suffer excessive stress is a health and safety issue and if an employer doesn’t deal with the problem then they could even face prosecution. By alerting your employer to a problem and helping to find a solution you will reduce this risk for them as well as helping your team to be healthier.

Published by the Institute of Leadership & Management and QMD Ltd © 2007 Copied under licence

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Coping with stress

Comprehension Check Complete the following exercises. Refer back to the session if necessary. A. Our bodies naturally respond to the pressures of modern life by preparing us for: 1. fight or a flight. 2. flight or fright. 3. sight or might. B. List three different possible causes of stress at work. 1. 2. 3.

C. List three possible symptoms of stress at work. 1. 2. 3. D. What are the three possible ways of dealing with stress at work? 1. 2. 3. E.

What are the six steps in the stress management technique described in the session? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Published by the Institute of Leadership & Management and QMD Ltd © 2007 Copied under licence

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Coping with stress

Making Connections Answer the questions following this case. Kate is still having problems with the time sheets. It is the end of March and she has to complete the payroll for the month and also produce everyone’s P60 (a statement of earnings and tax deductions). It also happens to be coming up to Easter so she only has four days this week. One by one she finds that worksheets haven’t been submitted, are inaccurate or haven’t been signed by the home managers. She is becoming increasingly bad tempered and making more errors herself. Then the payroll software starts crashing. Eventually, Kate rushes out of the room in tears, shouting that she’s not coming back and “they can all go to ****”! Marie follows her out and finds Kate shaking and crying her eyes out. What would you suggest that Marie should do?

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Coping with stress

Think and Apply How well do you use the skills in this session? Have you are any member of your team suffered from stress so badly it has meant being off work? What caused that stress? How was it dealt with? Can you recognise any of the causes of stress in your workplace, or do you or any members of your team show any symptoms of stress? What can you do about this? Who might you need to speak to about the problem?

1. Read the list of skills. Tick the boxes to show your strengths and weaknesses. Skills

strengths weaknesses I’m good at this

I’m I’m not I’m quite so quite good good poor at this at this at this

recognising the symptoms of stress identifying the causes of stress reducing the pressures that cause stress dealing with stress at work when it occurs 2. Do you want to improve any of these skills?

3. How do you plan to improve the skills you listed in question 2? (You might want to discuss this with your line manager or your tutor/mentor/coach.)

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