FDC2022 | SPEAKER preview
workplace stress: facts and fictions nesses $450 billion a year at a minimum, a figure that would certainly be revised upward during crises like the Boeing 737 Max airplane failure or the pandemic.4 A Gallup poll found that 51% of stressed employees are disengaged;5 and a Colonial Life poll found that 41% are less productive.6 Stress compromises customer service, causes distractions that lead to costly errors, increases absenteeism and hurts the company image among future employees and customers.
By Jen Butler Heavy workloads, team conflicts, miscommunications, struggles to balance work and home, and job insecurity — it’s no wonder that we’ve come to believe that workplace stress is inevitable. That first fiction, that workplace stress is inevitable, leads us to a second: Stress is something we simply have to live with. In fact, if we want to rise in our jobs, we want to learn how to handle stress like the CEOs do. Finally, if we don’t want to live with stress, countless enthusiasts insist they have the one true cure for stress — and if we don’t like that cure, we’re doomed.
The Truth about Stress With so many myths circulating about stress, it’s time to look at a few hard facts:
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Stress is not inevitable, but it is increasing. COVID-19 plunged us into fears around a new disease, unemployment and food insecurity. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention compared similar populations from June 2019 and June 2020 for symptoms of anxiety, depression and strain. Anxiety disorders rose from 8.1% in 2019 to 25.5% in 2020; depressive disorders tripled from 6.5% to 24.3%; and mental strain rose from 30.9% to 40.9%.1 Workplace stress is life-altering at all levels of an organization. According to a recent Yale School of Management study, high exposure to incredibly stressful situations reduced a CEO’s lifespan by at least 10 years.2 Moreover, 80% of second-level executives identify themselves as burned out. Finally, a 2018 survey by Wrike found that in both small and large companies, the major contributor to employee stress was poor communication.3 Workplace stress is too costly to ignore. According to the American Psychological Association, stress causes U.S. busi-
The Individuality of Stress One size does not fit all. We are each susceptible to different triggers for stress. One person may shrug off a friend’s insensitive joke or the failure of a pet project or even a “happy” event like a promotion; another finds it intolerable. Our go-to responses to stress also vary wildly, through every stage from total withdrawal to anger and even violence. Stress itself has three components. It may be psychological, the stress we put on ourselves by our way of thinking; physiological, those things we do to our body that are unhealthy (such as sitting at a desk for hours without a break); and situational, brought on by events, activities and situations in our daily life (such as interpersonal conflict). It may be triggered by any one or any combination of those components, or all three together.
The Options Available The same stress-reduction techniques may make perfect sense for some of us and only add to the stress of the rest. Many socalled team-building events have that effect — not everyone bonds happily over bungee jumping. Moreover, we all learn at a different pace and need time to absorb, practice and embrace new ways of responding to stress. The options for dealing with stress fall broadly into four categories:
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