We knew when we developed the training, Melting Your Stress within 30 Days, how important stress management is for team leaders, managers and supervisors. It has been one of many leadership training activities offered in Central Oregon and other US communities for over 10 years.
This report and study, however, is quite alarming when it comes to the health of US workers and impacts Central Oregon.
An international poll conducted by Monster reveals that 42% of US respondents have left a job due to an overly stressful environment; workplace stress has also caused an additional 35% to consider changing jobs. A related Monster US survey has found that 55% respondents experience very stressful lives; this percentage rises to 57% when specifically related to work stress. Only 3% of respondents report to experience no stress in their work life.
“42% of US respondents have left a job due to an overly stressful environment!”
Monster, the worldwide leader in successfully connecting people to job opportunities, asked visitors to their site the question, “Has stress from work ever driven you to a job change?” and received over 6,700 responses.
US and Central Oregon Team Building Activities and Stress findings included:
- 42% of respondents answered “I have purposely changed jobs due to a stressful work environment”
- 35% of respondents answered “I thought about changing my job because of a stressful work environment”
- 23% of respondents answered “I have never changed my job specifically due to a stressful work environment”
Do you know which international employees are least likely to switch jobs due to stress?
Respondents from India. Only 19% have ever left a job because it was too stressful, and 57% report that they have never switched jobs because their current one is too stressful.
Workplace stress is of most concern in France and the UK1, with almost half (48%) of respondents from both countries’ noting they have changed jobs due to a stressful work environment. Further, only 11% of French respondents have not changed jobs due to stress.
Monster’s US study provided further insight into various aspects of a stressful work environment and its impact on personal life. The survey, which generated over 900 responses, revealed:
- The most commonly reported workplace stressors include: supervisor relationship (40%) amount of work (39%) work-life balance (34%) and coworker relationships (31%)
- 61% of respondents believe that workplace stress has been the cause of an illness
- 46% of respondents have missed time at work due to work-related stress; 7% report illness so severe it caused hospitalization
- 84% of respondents claim that their stressful job has impacted their personal lives; 26% report sleepless nights, 24% report depression, 21% report family or relationship issues, and 19% report physical ailments
- The most common methods of coping with work-related stress include: talking to a friend/colleague/spouse (55%), exercising (40%), eating (35%), stepping away from work (35%), taking a day off (32%), and drinking or recreational drug use after work (24%)
- When asked “What does your office do to help alleviate stress in the workplace?” 13% of respondents answered “extra time-off”; 11% answered “ability to work from home”; and 66% answered “nothing.”
These were alarming results considering that Central Oregon offers a clean environment with reasonable commute times. It is, however, expensive for entry level employees to find affordable housing in Bend so commute times are longer, but not traffic congested. Income stress and the ability to pay bills is a top-of-the-mind concern for some younger, minimum-wage earning employees.
It is important to note that not all stress is bad. A form of stress known as Eustress is actually helpful to getting teams in Central Oregon and other communities fired up to do their best work.
However, “Workplace stress can come from any part of a job and triggers are different for everyone, so finding a true solution to stress tends to require a personalized approach. While every job will come with a degree of stress it is important to act if it becomes unmanageable,” said Mary Ellen Slayter, Career Advice Expert for Monster. “It’s good to start by tracking your stress levels and looking for common triggers. Your workplace stress might feel like one big cloud of anxiety, but there are likely many contributing factors and evaluating them individually is crucial. Some problems, once isolated, might have simple solutions- like making adjustments to an unbalanced schedule or ensuring you always take a break at lunchtime.”
Slayter continues, “On the other hand, if you are identifying complex problems and facing deeper issues at work, such as an adversarial relationship with your supervisor or a consistently unmanageable workload, it might be time to consider finding a new job at a workplace that’s a better fit for you. When job hunting, be mindful of the stressors you’ve identified as problematic and thoroughly research both the culture and expectations at a potential new company.”
Some Central Oregon health workers have discovered the Melting your Stress within 30 Days self-coaching action guide, which gives them a way to track their stressors along with important solutions and inventories so that stress is made manageable. It is also an excellent team building activity and team building resource for leaders in Central Oregon looking to build sustainable teams for their talent retention goals. This program offers live and then recorded monthly coaching calls where participants share what is working for them and important insights that transform high stress into manageable levels of Eustress.
About the Survey:
Monster’s “Workplace Stress” study surveyed nearly 1,000 job seekers on the Monster database via an online survey.
Copyright TIGERS Success Series, Inc by Jill Jackson
About TIGERS Success Series, Inc.
TIGERS Success Series is a Bend, Oregon Management Consulting company that has been helping leaders in Central Oregon and North America build teams of employees who are loyal and love returning to work after a couple of days. TIGERS has been in the team improvement business for over 2 decades. The researched-based TIGERS team development model focuses on six principles that build high levels of cooperation among employees and collaboration between departments whether client companies are team-based or not. These measurable principles are trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success.
Join us for the two-day workshop, 6 Principles That Build High Performance Teams and experience powerful team building resources while we guide you through the steps and processes to develop successful team action plans for workforce development outcomes and for new project teams. Additional learning resources include the 6 Principles Leadership Training that comes with 8 introductory videos, 8 podcasts with coaching handouts and the book TIGERS Among Us, Winning Business Team Cultures and Why They Thrive. Participants have access to the training room for a year so that learning is self-paced and offering high transference outcomes. TIGERS also offers training and licensing to HRD Executives interested in building higher levels of cooperation organization-wide. Licensing is compatible with leadership survey training, communication skills training, 6 Sigma training and for root-cause problem solving and decision-making training among others.
