Organizational behaviour
Siti Nazrana 
Lecture10OrganisationalChangeandStressManagement.pptxBX3171 Organisational Behaviour Topic 16 - Organisation Change and Stress Management
Lecturer: Jaime Wong
Lecture
Learning from Assessment 2
Workshop Activity (last chance to improve your 10% participation grade)
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Topic 16
Organisational change and stress management
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Organisational Culture and Change Management
The need for change has been implied throughout this text. ‘A casual reflection on change should indicate that it encompasses almost all of our concepts in the organisational behaviour literature.’ For instance, think about attitudes, motivation, work teams, communication, leadership, organisational structures, human resource practices and organisational cultures. Change was an integral part in the discussion of each.
If environments were perfectly static, if employees’ skills and abilities were always up-to-date and incapable of deteriorating, and if tomorrow were exactly the same as today, organisational change would have little or no relevance to managers. But the real world is turbulent, requiring organisations and their members to undergo dynamic change if they are to perform at competitive levels.
Managers are the primary change agents in most organisations. By the decisions they make and their role-modelling behaviours, they shape the organisation’s change culture. Management decisions related to structural design, cultural factors and human resource policies largely determine the level of innovation within the organisation. Management policies and practices will determine the degree to which the organisation learns and adapts to changing environmental factors.
Consider that, as a manager, you are a change agent in your organisation. The decisions you make and your role-modelling behaviours will help shape the organisation’s change culture.
Your management policies and practices will determine the degree to which the organisation learns and adapts to changing environmental factors.
Some stress is good. Low to moderate amounts of stress enable many people to perform their jobs better by increasing their work intensity, alertness and ability to react. This is especially true if stress arises due to challenges on the job rather than as the result of hindrances that prevent employees from doing their jobs effectively.
You can help alleviate harmful workplace stress for your employees by accurately matching workloads to employees, providing employees with stress-coping resources and responding to their concerns.
You can identify extreme stress in your employees when performance declines, turnover increases, health-related absenteeism increases and engagement declines. However, by the time these symptoms are visible, it may be too late to be helpful, so stay alert for early indicators and be proactive.
What is the difference between planned and unplanned change? There are a number of forces that stimulate change today:
The nature of the workforce—such as a multicultural environment, demographic changes, immigration, outsourcing
Technology—which may make an office an antiquated concept
Economic shocks—such as a global financial crisis
Competition—including global competition
Social trends—rise in consumer power due to information sharing over the internet, volatile social trends, and ‘green’ priorities
World politics—Iraq War and the opening of China.
Planned changes are the activities that are proactive and purposeful; they are intentional, goal-oriented activities. The goals of planned change are improving the ability of the organisation to adapt to changes in its environment and changing employee behaviour. The change agents are people who act as catalysts and assume the responsibility for managing change activities. Unplanned change, in contrast, is accidental in nature.
What forces act as sources of resistance to change? Resistance to change can take the form of an overt and immediate response, such as voicing complaints and engaging in job actions. Other forms can be implicit and deferred, such as a loss of employee loyalty and motivation, increased errors or mistakes and increased absenteeism. Deferred resistance clouds the link between source and reaction.
Individual reasons to resist change are: habit, security, economic factors, fear of the unknown and selective information processing. Organisational sources are: structural inertia, limited focus of change, group inertia, threat to expertise, threat to power relationships and threat to resource allocations.
What are the four main approaches to managing organisational change?
Lewin’s three-step model, consisting of unfreezing the status quo, through movement to a desired end state, and refreezing the new change to make it permanent.
Kotter’s eight-step plan for implementing change:
Establish a sense of urgency.
Form a coalition.
Create a new vision.
Communicate the vision.
Empower others by removing barriers.
Create and reward short-term ‘wins’.
Consolidate, reassess and adjust.
Reinforce the changes.
Action research, which is a change process based on systematic collection of data and then the selection of a change action based on what the analysed data indicates. Process steps are:
Diagnosis
Analysis
Feedback
Action
Evaluation.
Organisational development, which is a collection of planned interventions, built on humanistic democratic values that seeks to improve organisational effectiveness and employee well-being. OD underlying values are:
Respect for people
Trust and support
Power equalisation
Confrontation
Participation.
How can managers create a culture for change? A manager can stimulate a culture for change by stimulating a culture of innovation. Innovation itself can be a new idea applied to initiating or improving a product, process or service. To create a culture of innovation, the structural variables required involve organic structure, long managerial tenure, abundance of resources and inter-unit communication.
Furthermore, a manager can create a learning organisation, which is an organisation that has developed the continuous capacity to adapt and change. It can be created by establishing a strategy, redesigning the structure to be flatter and increasing cross-functional activities and reshaping the culture to accept admitted failures and mistakes.
What is stress and what are the possible sources of stress? Stress is a dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with an opportunity, constraint or demand related to what he or she desires, and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important. There are many potential sources of stress:
Environmental factors—economic uncertainties, political uncertainties, and technological uncertainties
Organisational factors—task demands related to the job, role demands of functioning in an organisation, interpersonal demands created by other employees
Personal factors—family and personal relationships, economic problems from exceeding earning capacity, personality problems arising from basic disposition.
What are the consequences of stress? The consequences of stress can be very serious, and even fatal. There are three major areas:
Physiological—increased susceptibility to upper respiratory illnesses and poor immune system functioning, especially for individuals with low self-efficacy
Psychological—dissatisfaction, tension, anxiety, irritability, boredom and procrastination
Behavioural—changes in productivity, absence, and turnover, as well as changes in eating habits, increased smoking or consumption of alcohol, rapid speech, fidgeting and sleep disorders.
What are the individual and organisational approaches to managing stress? Individual approaches include implementing time-management techniques, increasing physical exercise, relaxation training and expanding the social support network.
Organisational approaches include:
Improved personnel selection and job placement
Training
The use of realistic goal setting
Redesigning of jobs
Increased employee involvement
Improved organisational communication
Offering employee sabbaticals
Establishing corporate wellness programs.
Learning Objectives
Analyse the forces that act as stimuli to change, and contrast planned and unplanned change
Review the sources of resistance to change
Contrast the individual and organisational approaches to managing stress
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https://www.managementstudyguide.com/individual-and-organizational-sources-of-resistance-to-change.htm
Individual sources of resistance towards a change exist in the basic human tenets or characteristics and are influenced by the differences in perception, personal background, needs or personality-related differences. It is important to understand those triggering factors or issues which refrain individuals from endorsing change or extending their support and cooperation towards any change initiatives at an organizational level.
Criticizing the individuals or the teams for not being supportive in the stages of transition or compelling them cannot be an effective solution for implementing change smoothly or in a hassle free manner.
The resistance towards change at an individual level can be due to various reasons:
How satisfied they are with the existing state of affairs
Whether they appreciate the overall end product of change and it’s outcome on them
How much practical or realistic the change is
What will be the possible cost change on the individual in terms of potential risks involved, pressure to develop new competencies and disruptions
Introduction
This topic focuses on change and stress.
We describe the environmental forces that require companies to change, why people and organisations often resist change and how this resistance can be overcome.
We review the processes for managing organisational change.
We discuss what individuals and organisations can do to better manage stressors.
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Exhibit 16.1
Forces for organisational change
Internal stimuli
External stimuli (local and global)
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There are many stimuli for change within an organisation and Exhibit 16.1 provides some examples. Internal stimuli for change typically focus on the changing nature of the workforce and organisational performance. External stimuli are multiple. We’ve adopted the PESTEL analysis framework, where each letter of PESTEL represents an external environmental factor capable of stimulating organisational change.
Not even globalisation’s strongest proponents could have imagined how the globe’s politics would change in recent years. We’ve seen a major set of financial crises that have rocked global markets, a dramatic rise in the power and influence of China and intense shake-ups in governments across the Arab world. Throughout the industrialised world, businesses—particularly in the banking and financial sectors—have come under new scrutiny. Economic factors have stimulated changes in competition. Since competitors are as likely to come from across the ocean as from across town, successful organisations will be fast on their feet, capable of developing new products rapidly and getting them to market quickly.
Socio-cultural trends don’t remain static. Consumers now meet and share information using all forms of social media. Companies must continually adjust their products and marketing strategies to be sensitive to changing social trends, a reality not lost on Australian retail group Myer, when faced with the onslaught of e-shopping. In its attempts to adjust to a new economy where e-commerce was challenging the traditional models of retailing in Australia, Myer continued to struggle, with both Bernie Brooks and Richard Umbers leaving the chief executive’s role after unsuccessfully attempting to make the necessary changes that Myer needed. The current CEO, John King, who previously successfully transformed the House of Fraser chain in the UK, still faces major challenges in Australia. By November 2018, ten years after being initially floated on the Australian Stock Exchange at AU$4.10 per share, Myer’s share price had plunged to AU$0.40.
Technology is continually changing jobs and organisations. The very idea of an office becoming an antiquated concept is no longer fiction with the rise of smart work hubs, co-working spaces and virtual offices.
There’s also more environmental awareness among consumers, employees and organisational leaders. ‘Green’ practices are quickly becoming expected rather than optional. Finally, local and global laws and regulations, including taxation laws, international law and the regulation and deregulation of industries all affect the ability of a modern organisation to perform well in national or global markets.
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Forces for change
The nature of change
Incremental (happen in small steps eg respond to new regulation, hiring new employee)
Continuous (and discontinuous) change
Where is change most effective?
Individual using change-management techniques
Team/group – influence of group norms, group values and group practices on individuals
Organisational level
Planned change
To meet specific goals or to follow a specific strategy
Change agents are people who act as catalysts and assume responsibility for managing change activities.
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https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-organizationalbehavior/chapter/forces-of-change/
Organizations and their managers have to learn how to anticipate and implement change effectively. Managers need to find ways to overcome their employees’ natural aversion to change, because managing change effectively can mean the difference between staying in business and becoming irrelevant to their customers. The first step in managing change effectively is to understand what change is and where it comes from.
Organizational change is the transformation or adjustment to the way an organization functions. Organizations adjust to small changes all the time, possibly looking to improve productivity, responding to a new regulation, hiring a new employee, or something similar. But on top of these little adjustments we make at work all the time, there are larger pressures that loom over us, like competition, technology, or customer demands. Those larger pressures sometimes require larger responses.
What forces create these changes?
External forces are those changes that are part of an organization’s general and business environment. There are several kinds of external forces an organization might face:
Demographic. A changing work demographic might require an organizational change in culture.
Social. Changing social trends can pressure organizations into making changes.
Political. Government restrictions often force change onto organizations.
Technology. Ongoing disruption
Economic. Level of Confidence
Resistance to change
Individual resistance to change
Organisational resistance to change
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Our egos are fragile, and we often see change as threatening. Even when employees are shown data that suggest they need to change, they latch onto whatever data they can find that suggest they’re okay and don’t need to change.6 Employees who have negative feelings about a change utilise a range of coping strategies, including not thinking about it, increasing their use of sick time and/or quitting. All these reactions can sap the organisation of vital energy when it’s most needed.
Resistance to change doesn’t come only from lower levels of the organisation. In many cases, higher level managers resist changes proposed by subordinates, especially if these leaders are focused on immediate performance or they recognise that the change will adversely affect their status, power or influence. Conversely, when leaders are focused more on mastery and exploration, they’re more willing to hear and adopt subordinates’ suggestions for change.
There are many sources of resistance to change and some can have a very positive effect on the success of the change initiative. For example, resistance to change can be positive if it leads to more open discussion and debate. These kinds of responses are usually preferable to apathy or silence and can indicate that members of the organisation are open to be engaged in the process, giving change agents an opportunity to explain the change effort. Change agents can also use resistance to modify the change to fit the preferences of other members of the organisation. If change agents treat resistance only as a threat, rather than a behaviour to be understood and managed, they may increase dysfunctional conflict.
Resistance doesn’t necessarily surface in standardised ways. It can be overt, implicit, immediate or deferred. It’s easiest for management to deal with overt and immediate resistance, such as complaints, a work slowdown or a strike threat. The greater challenge is managing resistance that’s implicit or deferred. These responses—loss of loyalty or motivation, increased errors or absenteeism—are more subtle and more difficult to recognise for what they are. Deferred actions also cloud the link between the change and the reaction to it and may surface weeks, months or even years later. Or a single change of little inherent impact may be the idiomatic ‘straw that breaks the camel’s back’ because resistance to earlier changes has been deferred and stockpiled
Exhibit 16.2
Sources of individual resistance to change, Part 1
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There have been many attempts at cataloguing the sources of an individual’s resistance to change. Exhibit 16.2 summarises the major sources of individuals’ resistance to change. Individual sources reside in human characteristics such as perceptions, personalities and needs.
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Sources: D. C. Hambrick and A. A. Cannella, ‘Strategy implementation as substance and selling’, Academy of Management Executive 3, no. 4, 1989, pp. 278–85; S. Oreg, ‘Resistance to change: developing an individual differences measure’, Journal of Applied Psychology 88, no. 4, 2003, pp. 680–93; M. Pardo del Val and C. Martinez Fuentes, ‘Resistance to change: a literature review and empirical study’, Management Discipline 41, 2003, pp. 148–55; F. Graetz, M. Rimmer, A. Lawrence and S. Smith, Managing Organisational Change, London, England: Wiley, 2006; B. Burnes, Managing Change (6th edn), Harlow, England: Pearson 2014; and D. M. Waddell, A. Creed, T. G. Cummings and C. G. Worley, Organizational Change Development and Transformation (6th edn), Melbourne, Australia: Cengage, 2017.
Exhibit 16.2
Sources of individual resistance to change, Part 2
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Exhibit 16.3
Sources of organisational resistance to change
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Exhibit 16.3 lists some organisational sources to change that reside in organisations due to perceived threats and organisational inertia.
It’s worth noting that not all change is good. The speed with which radical change is often undertaken due to the pressure exerted by the need for urgent change can lead to poor decisions, and sometimes those initiating change fail to realise the full magnitude of the effects or their true costs. Rapid, transformational change is risky, so change agents need to carefully think through the full implications of a change.
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Resistance to change
Eight tactics to overcome resistance to change
Education and communication
Facilitating Participation and involvment
Building support and commitment
Developing positive relationships
Implementing changes fairly
Manipulation and co-optation
Selecting people who accept change
Coercion
Beware of the politics of change
Long term power holders tend to implement incremental changes.
Explains why board of directors often turn to outside candidates for new leadership when introducing rapid and radical change in the organisation.
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https://www.managementstudyguide.com/overcoming-resistance-to-change-and-selection-of-appropriate-technique.htm
According to Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) proposed six crucial techniques for overcoming the resistance to change. These are given below:
Widespread Education and Improving Communication
Facilitating Participation and involvement
Support and Facilitation
Agreement & Negotiation
Co-optation & Manipulation
Coercion-Both Explicit and Implicit
Education and Effective Communication: This is one of the commonest techniques for minimizing resistance to change by educating people and promoting awareness through effective communication regarding the benefits of a planned change. By explaining the need for change and the objectives of change, the management can gain the much-needed support from the team members and facilitate its smoother implementation.
With the help of two-way communication, the employee’s queries and oppositions related to various aspects of change can be quickly addressed and thereby, minimize the objections or hassles which may come across in the path of implementation of change.
Given below are the important principles which are related to the communication of change and require a lot of attention while implementation a planned change:
A large-scale planned change can be effective and yield successful outcomes only if it involves two-way communication efforts. Only top down communication or one-way communication will fail to attract the desired commitment from the staff members.
The staff members do have a preference for being communicated about the change on face to face basis from their immediate supervisors.
According to Beckhard & Pritchard 1992; Robbins et al. 1998; Ivancevich & Matteson 1996, employees prefer a consultation and involvement in the change.
Few important things which should be essentially followed while implementing an organization-wide change are:
Avoid sending emails or memo for informing the employees regarding a change initiative and expect that the employees will be able to understand and accept it readily.
Invite the suggestions and feedback from the staff members, involve them in the process and encourage their participation for effective results.
Communicate with people regularly by engaging in face to face interactions with them both individually and in groups and provide them opportunities for discussion.
Facilitating Participation and Involvement: This technique gives a lot of importance to involving the resistors in the change process by setting up a collaborative environment and implementing the change in consultation with the staff. It is a constructive strategy and can be beneficial in minimizing the resistance to change by involving the employees and seeking their participation in the entire process.
Models of planned organisational change
Lewin’s three-step model
Unfreezing the status quo (next slide)
Driving forces
Restraining forces
Movement to a desired end state
Refreezing the new change to make it permanent
Exhibit 16.4
Lewin’s three-step change model
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https://blog.hypeinnovation.com/planned-change-management
Planned change is the process of preparing the entire organization, or a significant part of it, for new goals or a new direction. This direction can refer to culture, internal structures, processes, metrics and rewards, or any other related aspects. While constant change is the new normal and the best companies embrace it, not all change is planned. On occasion, organizations will suddenly adapt to new market demands and heightened competition.
It’s also worth noting that planning for change and planning for innovation are not the same. Some practitioners describe change in general as incidental, administrative, and serving mostly "cosmetic purposes." Its role is, therefore, to maintain stability and incorporate certainties into the organization.
By contrast, innovation is a transformative process that requires deeper change (a makeover), custom tools, and creativity. Thus, innovation, as a change process, can appear unexpected and even nonsensical.
Let's take a look at planned change in general. Then, let's look at how a step-wise approach can help increase an organization’s effectiveness and capability to change itself. The following insights stem from Thomas Cummings and Christopher Worley’s writings. Their seminal work, "Organization Development and Change," is an excellent primer on change management models.
Three planned change models compared
Experts in organizational development and change often refer to three well-established models. The first is Kurt Lewin’s three-step model, mentioned above. The second is the so-called action research model, popular in development work. The third is the positive model with a unique focus on sufficiency rather than deficit.
Fun fact: The main change models we recognize today are products of the so-called pop-management culture that took off in the 1980s. This culture favored step-diagrams and simple visualizations as opposed to heavy reads. For example, the now infamous BCG Matrix.
Source: Cummings and Worley (2008)
Kurt Lewin’s three-step change model
Lewin’s change model provides a general framework for planned change which includes three basic steps:
Unfreezing – or reducing forces that keep things within an organization the way they are. Unfreezing happens through so-called "psychological disconfirmation." For example, running an organization-wide innovation survey and evaluating the results.
Moving – or shifting the organization’s behavior. This involves an intervention.
Refreezing – or stabilizing the organization in a new state of equilibrium. This step is not possible without support mechanisms. For example, building a solid corporate innovation capability.
Kurt Lewin’s model (1951) originates from Force Field Analysis (or the Force Field Model), a means by which to understand change processes in organizations. In force field analysis, change-related problems are characterized by an imbalance between so-called driving forces – e.g., new personnel, changing markets, new technology – and restraining forces – e.g., fear of failure, not invented here syndrome, and organizational inertia.
To thrive, an organization must unfreeze the driving and restraining forces, introduce an imbalance (increase the drivers, reduce the restraints – or both), and, finally, refreeze the forces. This final step brings an organization back into "quasi-equilibrium."
Further reading: Joe Thomas – "Force field analysis: A new way to evaluate your strategy"
Because the three steps of Lewin’s change are relatively broad, considerable effort has gone into elaborating them. Two examples come to mind. The first is from Lippitt, Watson, and Westley (1958). They arranged Lewin’s model into seven steps: scouting, entry, and diagnosis (unfreezing); planning and action (moving); stabilization, and evaluation, and termination (refreezing).
The second example is Kotter’s (1996) eight-stage model that refers to establishing a sense of urgency, creating the guiding coalition, developing a vision and strategy, and communicating the change vision (unfreezing). The remaining stages include empowering broad-based action, generating short-term wins (moving); and consolidating gains and producing more change, and anchoring new approaches in the culture (refreezing).
Another fun fact: Lewin’s model evolved into much more than the author originally intended. In "Unfreezing change as three steps: rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management," Stephen Cummings, Todd Bridgman, and Kenneth Brown (2016) offer a fascinating account of how the three-step model gained its current popularity independent of its founder.
Action research model
Also known as participatory action research, action learning, action science, or self-design model, the action research model is also prominent among organizational change specialists. Action research activities are typically top-down and happen in iterative cycles of research and action. Consequently, they require considerable collaboration between staff and externals.
Some other important features of the model include:
Heavy emphasis on data gathering and diagnosis before action and planning – e.g., using big data to solve (big) problems
Used to enact change at the unit level and even the organizational level; it is also a popular model in developing nations (applied to international settings); used to promote social change and innovation.
Positive model
A third important model is the positive model. This model represents a notable departure from both Lewin’s model and the specifics of action research. While the latter are "deficit"-based (they focus on problems/scarcity), the positive model focuses on what the organization is doing right and how existing capabilities can be used to help the organization reach new heights.
The positive model is also about:
Positive expectations that create anticipation that directs behavior towards making things happen (see Tesla and SpaceX)
Applying a process called appreciative inquiry. This process infuses a positive value orientation into analyzing and changing organizations
Promoting member involvement and creating a shared vision; the shared appreciation acts as a guide of what the organization could be
Exhibit 16.5
Unfreezing the status quo
Changing efforts to overcome the pressures of both individual resistance and group conformity.
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The status quo is an equilibrium state. To move from equilibrium—to overcome the pressures of both individual resistance and group conformity—unfreezing must happen in one of three ways (see Exhibit 16.5). The driving forces, which direct behaviour away from the status quo, can be increased. The restraining forces, which hinder movement away from equilibrium, can be decreased. A third alternative is to combine the first two approaches. Companies that have been successful in the past are likely to encounter restraining forces because people question the need for change.
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Models of planned organisational change
The positive model
Appreciative inquiry (AI): An approach that seeks to identify the unique qualities and special strengths of an organisation, which can then be built on to improve effectiveness.
Discovery: What gives life? What is the best? Appreciating and identifying processes that work well.
Dreaming: What might be? What is the world calling for? Envisioning results, and how things might work well in the future.
Design: What should be--the ideal? Co-constructing - planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.
Destiny (or deliver): How to empower, learn and adjust/improvise? Sustaining the change.
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https://www.betterevaluation.org/en/plan/approach/appreciative_inquiry
Appreciative Inquiry is an approach to organisational change which focuses on strengths rather than on weaknesses - quite different to many approaches to evaluation which focus on deficits and problems.
"Appreciative Inquiry is about the coevolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them. In its broadest focus, it involves systematic discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves, in a central way, the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential."
(Cooperrider & Whitney 2005, p.3)
Appreciative Inquiry is often presented in terms of a 4 step process around an affirmative topic choice:
1. DISCOVER: What gives life? What is the best? Appreciating and identifying processes that work well.
2. DREAM: What might be? What is the world calling for? Envisioning results, and how things might work well in the future.
3. DESIGN: What should be--the ideal? Co-constructing - planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.
4. DESTINY (or DELIVER): How to empower, learn and adjust/improvise? Sustaining the change
Models of planned organisational change
Organisational development (OD) approach to planned change
The dominant approach adopted by most organisations.
The change agent may take the lead in OD, but there’s a strong emphasis on collaboration.
Interventions can operate at different levels: individual, team or group, intergroup and organisational levels.
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Organisational development approach to planned change
As stated earlier, the organisation development approach to planned change is the most dominant approach adopted by most organisations. Organisational development (OD) is a system-wide application of behavioural-science knowledge to the planned development and reinforcement of organisational strategies, structures and processes for improving an organisation’s effectiveness. OD seeks to improve organisational performance and employee well-being and in doing so values human and organisational growth, collaborative and participative processes and a spirit of inquiry. There has been renewed interest in OD in recent times, following (1) a resurgence in interest in the work of Lewin by a new generation, (2) OD’s evolutionary growth and (3) the development of newer, academically rigorous approaches in the OD process, such as appreciative inquiry.
Organisational development (OD) - The system-wide application of behavioural science knowledge to the planned development and reinforcement of an organisation’s strategy, structure, people and processes, to improve effectiveness and employee well-being.
We now observe that contemporary OD places emphasis on the ways people see and respond to their environment. The change agent may take the lead in OD, but there’s a strong emphasis on collaboration.
Models of planned organisational change
Some Interventions (techniques)
Sensitivity training
Training groups that seek to change behaviour through unstructured group interaction.
Team building
A broad range of highly interactive planned activities among team members designed to increase teamwork, team effectiveness and mutual trust and openness
Intergroup development
A set of activities designed to identify and change a group’s or department’s dysfunctional attitude towards and perception of another group or department.
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Models of planned organisational change
Individual level—counselling and coaching, career planning, goal setting, performance appraisal, reward systems, job redesign, job enrichment, management-by-objective, stress management.
Team or group level—sensitivity training, team building, conflict management, process consultation, third-party intervention, role negotiation, role analysis.
Intergroup level—workflow planning, interorganisational development, intergroup conflict management, third-party intervention, total quality management.
Organisational level—strategic planning, work redesign, structural change, re-engineering, organisation confrontation meeting, TQM (total quality management), large group interventions.
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OD has developed many techniques (called interventions) to assist change agents in facilitating effective change. These interventions are typically sets of sequential planned actions that are intended to help an organisation improve its effectiveness.45 They can operate at the individual level, the team or group level, the inter-group level and the organisational level. This is a non-exclusive list of some interventions at each of different levels.
Creating more continuous change
Stimulating a culture of innovation
Definition of innovation – a new idea applied to initiating or improving a product, process or service.
Sources of innovation that positively influence innovation
Organic structure (because they facilitate the flexibility, adaptation and cross-fertilisation that make the adoption of innovation easier).
Innovation-contingent rewards, where there are slack, abundant resources.
Inter-unit communication is high.
An organisational culture that encourages experimentation and reward both successes and failures.
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https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/inside-the-box/201901/creating-culture-innovation
An innovative corporate culture is one that supports the creation of new ideas and the implementation of those ideas. Leaders must help employees see innovation in practice as a regular part of how the company does business.
See Innovation as a Competency
Innovation is a skill, not a gift. It can be learned by anyone and applied systematically. Innovative companies treat it as just another core skill by:
Creating a well-defined set of innovation competencies and embedding them into every employee's competency model along with other required behaviors such as ethics and leadership.
Conducting regular training courses in creativity methods and innovation management.
Staffing internal innovation experts and coaches who work with teams to help guide their innovation efforts and facilitate their success.
Rewarding employees for innovation, both the results of as well as efforts to become more innovative.
Creating more continuous change
Organisational change and stress
Stress caused by organisational change.
Identify causes and mitigating factors of stress.
Role of leadership is critical.
Transformational leaders can help shape employee affect to help employees stay committed to the change, and not perceive change as stressful.
A positive change orientation decrease employees’ stress.
Continually work to increase employees’ self-efficacy, change-related attitudes, and employees’ perceived control.
A need for increasing communication during the change.
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Work stress and its management
What is stress?
Challenge stressors: associated with workload, pressure to complete tasks and time urgency.
Hinderance stressors: stressors that keep one from reaching their goals (red tape, office politics, unclear job responsibilities)
Job demand-resources theory, stress is associated with demands and resources.
Demands: responsibilities, pressures, obligations and uncertainties that individuals face in the workplace.
Resources: things within an individual’s control that can be used to resolve demands placed on them.
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Think about the times you’ve felt stressed during your work life. Look past the everyday stress factors that can spill over to the workplace, such as a traffic jam that makes you late for work or a broken coffee machine that keeps you from your morning flat white. What were the more memorable and lasting stressful times at work? For many people, these were caused by organisational change.
Researchers are increasingly studying the effects of organisational change on employees. They are interested in determining the specific causes and mitigating factors of stress in order to learn how to manage organisational change effectively. The overall findings are that organisational changes incorporating OB knowledge of how people react to stressors may yield more effective results than organisational changes that are only objectively managed through goal setting. Not surprisingly, the role of leadership is critical. Studies have demonstrated that transformational leaders can help shape employee affect so that employees stay committed to the change and don’t perceive it as stressful. Other research has indicated that a positive orientation towards change before specific changes are planned will predict how employees deal with new initiatives. A positive change orientation will decrease employees’ stress when they go through organisational changes and will increase their positive attitudes. Managers can be continually working to increase employees’ self-efficacy, change-related attitudes and perceived control in order to create this positive change orientation. For instance, they can use role clarification and continual rewards to increase self-efficacy. They can also enhance employees’ perceived control and positive change attitudes by including employees from the planning stages through to the application of new processes. A further study added the need for increasing the amount of communication to employees during change, for assessing and enhancing the employees’ psychological resilience through offering social support and for training employees in emotional self-regulation techniques. Through these methods, managers can help employees keep their stress levels low and their commitment high.
Stress is a dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with an opportunity, a demand or a resource issue related to what the individual desires, and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important.
Although stress is typically discussed in a negative context, it’s not necessarily bad in and of itself; it also has a positive value. In response to stress, your nervous system, hypothalamus, and pituitary and adrenal glands supply you with stress hormones to cope. Your heartbeat and breathing accelerate to increase the supply of oxygen, while your muscles tense for action. This is an opportunity when stress offers potential gain. Consider, for example, the superior performance an athlete or stage performer gives in a ‘clutch’ situation. Such individuals often use stress positively to rise to the occasion and perform at their maximum. Similarly, many professionals see the pressures of heavy workloads and deadlines as positive challenges that enhance the quality of their work and the satisfaction they get from their job. However, when the situation is negative, stress is harmful and may hinder your progress by elevating your blood pressure uncomfortably and creating an erratic heart rhythm as you struggle to speak and think logically.
Recently, researchers have argued that challenge stressors—or stressors associated with workload, pressure to complete tasks and time urgency—operate quite differently from hindrance stressors—or stressors that keep you from reaching your goals (red tape, office politics, confusion over job responsibilities). Challenge stressors lead to more motivation, engagement and performance than hindrance stressors. Hindrance stressors, on the other hand, appear to have more of a negative effect on safety compliance and participation, employee engagement, job satisfaction, organisational commitment, performance and withdrawal than do challenge stressors.70 A meta-analysis of responses from more than 35 000 individuals showed that role ambiguity, role conflict, role overload, job insecurity, environmental uncertainty and situational constraints were all consistently negatively related to job performance. There’s also evidence that challenge stress improves job performance in a supportive work environment, whereas hindrance stress reduces job performance in all work environments.
Exhibit 16.6
Demand-resource model
Source: Based on R. Karasek and T. Theorell, Healthy Work: Stress, Productivity and the Reconstruction of Working Life, New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1990.
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When you take a test at university or you undergo your annual performance review at work, you feel stress because you confront opportunities and performance pressures. A good performance review may lead to a promotion, greater responsibilities and a higher salary. A poor review may prevent you from getting a promotion. An extremely poor review might even result in you losing your job. To the extent that you can apply resources to the demands on you—such as being prepared, placing the exam or performance review in perspective or obtaining social support—you will feel less stress.
A demand–resource model (see Exhibit 16.6) illustrates one way of viewing this.
Research suggests that adequate resources help reduce the stressful nature of demands when demands and resources match. If emotional demands are stressing you, having emotional resources in the form of social support is especially important. If the demands are cognitive—say, information overload—then job resources in the form of computer support or information are more important. Therefore, under the demands–resources theory, having the resources to cope with stress is just as important in offsetting it as the demands are in increasing it.
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Work stress and its management
The stress–performance relationship:
Higher levels of psychological burnout at the work-unit level were related to significantly higher levels of sickness absence.
Inverted-U in exhibit 16.7 (next slide).
Multiple stressors increase stress exponentially.
The organisational cost of work-related mental stress
Direct cost due to employees presenteeism and absenteeism.
Medical claims and cost of restaffing, re-training.
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https://smallbusiness.chron.com/stress-affects-work-performance-18040.html
Workplace stress derives from many sources. It can be a demanding boss, annoying co-workers, rebellious students, angry customers, hazardous conditions, long commutes and a never-ending workload. Your work performance is also affected by stressors such as family relationships, finances and a lack of sleep stemming from fears and anxieties about the future. How you handle the effects of stress depends on whether it is easier to change the situation or change your attitude toward it.
Poor Time Management
The positive side of stress is that it can jump-start your adrenalin and motivate you to perform your tasks more quickly in response to impending deadlines. An overwhelming workload, lack of peer support and too many demands at once, however, contribute to a sense of frustration and panic that there isn't enough time to complete the work. According to the authors of "Performance Under Pressure: Managing Stress in the Workplace," if these conditions routinely result in overtime or having to take work home, the stress of being unable to manage time efficiently can fuel employees' resentment toward the company as well as negatively influence their commitment and loyalty.
Strained Interactions and Relationships
Stress is a major contributor to job burn-out and strained interactions with peers and supervisors, says Bob Losvyk, author of "Get a Grip!: Overcoming Stress and Thriving in the Workplace." The combined feelings of helplessness and hopelessness generate heightened sensitivities to any and all forms of criticism, defensiveness, depression, paranoia about job security, jealousy and resentment toward co-workers who seem to have everything under control, short-fuse tempers, diminished self-esteem and withdrawal.
Lack of Focus
Stress affects your ability to remember things you already know, to process new information you are learning and to apply both to analytical situations and physical tasks that require concentration. When you are mentally exhausted from all of the worries, anxieties and tension brought on by a stressful environment or lifestyle, you are more easily distracted and prone to make costly, harmful or even fatal mistakes on the job.
Effect on Health
In addition to headaches, sleep disorders, vision problems, weight loss/gain and blood pressure, stress affects cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and musculoskeletal systems, says Richard Weinstein, author of "The Stress Effect." If you're not feeling well, you're not going to do your best work. Further, the amount of sick leave taken to rest and recuperate from stress-related illnesses often means that the work only accumulates during your absence and, thus, generates even more stress about how to catch up once you return.
Exhibit 16.7
The inverted-U relationship between stress and job performance
Source: Substantially adapted and reworked from R. M. Yerkes and J. D. Dodson, ‘The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation’, Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology 18, no. 5, 1908, pp. 459–82.
Low to moderate levels of stress help improve performance.
But, continued intensity of stress result in lower performance.
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A significant amount of research has investigated the stress–performance relationship. One study involving Danish human services workers found that higher levels of psychological burnout at the work-unit level were related to significantly higher levels of sickness absence.
The most widely studied pattern of this relationship is the inverted-U shown in Exhibit 16.7. The logic underlying the inverted-U is that low to moderate levels of stress stimulate the body and increase its ability to react. Individuals then often perform their tasks better, more intensely or more rapidly. But too much stress places unattainable demands on a person, which results in lower performance.
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Work stress and its management
Potential sources of stress
Environmental risk factors
PESTEL factors eg threats of terrorism, changing government policies, or technological change.
Organisational risk factors
Time pressure, work overload, demanding/ insensitive boss, unpleasant colleagues, etc.
WHO identified ten psycho-social hazards in the workplace.
Personal and familial risk factors
Family issues, personal economic problems eg financial, relationship or social-cultural issues.
Ten psycho-social hazards (WHO
Job content
Workload and work pace
Work schedules
Control
Environment and equipment
Organisational culture
Inter-personal relationships
Role in the organisation
Career development
Work-home interface
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https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-organizationalbehavior/chapter/sources-of-stress/
Individual Factors
The first of three sources of stress is individual. Individuals might experience stressful commutes to work, or a stressful couple of weeks helping at a work event, but those kinds of temporary, individual stresses are not what we’re looking at here. We’re looking for a deeper, longer-term stress. Family stress—marriages that are ending, issues with children, an ailing parent—these are stressful situations that an employee really can’t leave at home when he or she comes to work. Financial stress, like the inability to pay bills or an unexpected new demand on a person’s cash flow might also be an issue that disturbs an employee’s time at work. Finally, an individual’s own personality might actually contribute to his or her stress. People’s dispositions—how they perceive things as negative or positive—can be a factor in each person’s stress as well.
Organizational Factors
There’s a plethora of organizational sources of stress.
Task or role demands: these are factors related to a person’s role at work, including the design of a person’s job or working conditions. A stressful task demand might be a detailed, weekly presentation to the company’s senior team. A stressful role demand might be where a person is expected to achieve more in a set amount of time than is possible.
Interpersonal demands: these are stressors created by co-workers. Perhaps an employee is experiencing ongoing conflict with a co-worker he or she is expected to collaborate closely with. Or maybe employees are experiencing a lack of social support in their roles.
Organizational structure: this refers to the level of differentiation within an organization, the degree of rules and regulations, and where decisions are made. If employees are unable to participate in decisions that affect them, they may experience stress.
Organizational leadership: this refers to the organization’s style of leadership, particularly the managerial style of its senior executives. Leaders can create an environment of tension, fear and anxiety and can exert unrealistic pressure and control. If employees are afraid they’ll be fired for not living up to leadership’s standards, this can definitely be a source of stress.
Organizational life stage: an organization goes through a cycle of stages (birth, growth, maturity, decline). For employees, the birth and decline of an organization can be particularly stressful, as those stages tend to be filled with heavy workloads and a level of uncertainty about the future.
Environmental Factors
Finally, there are environmental sources of stress. The economy may be in a downturn, creating uncertainty for job futures and bank accounts. There may be political unrest or change creating stress. Finally, technology can cause stress, as new developments are constantly making employee skills obsolete, and workers fear they’ll be replaced by a machine that can do the same. Employee are also often expected to stay connected to the workplace 24/7 because technology allows it.
Exhibit 16.8
Exhibit 16.8 A model of workplace stress
Sources: Developed and adapted from Leka et. Al. 2010; and Kompier and Marcelissen 1990.
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As the model in Exhibit 16.8 shows, there typically are three sources of potential stress in the workplace: external environmental, organisational and familial and that this is capable of leading to two types of medical conditions (physiological and psychological), but the consequences of stress are moderated by a particular individual’s characteristics.
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Work stress and its management
Moderating effect of individual differences
Some thrive on stressful situations, others are overwhelmed.
Job experience, personal values, personality, perception and a person’s level of social support.
Cultural differences
US employees were stressed by a lack of control.
Chinese employees stressed by job evaluations and lack of training.
Type A personality traits predicted stress equally well across Hungary, Italy, UK, Israel, US.
In collectivistic cultures, working extra hours is seen as a sacrifice to help the family, whereas in individualistic cultures, work is seen as a means to personal achievement that takes away from the family.
Evidence also suggests that stress is equally bad for employees of all cultures.
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Moderating effect of individual differences
Some people thrive on stressful situations, while others are overwhelmed by them. What differentiates people in terms of their ability to handle stress? What individual character variables moderate the relationship between potential stressors and experienced stress?
There are many and they include such things as job experience, personal values, personality, perception and a person’s level of social support.
Job experience tends to be negatively related to work stress. Two explanations have been offered for this. The first is selective withdrawal. Voluntary turnover is more probable among people who experience more stress. Therefore, people who remain with an organisation longer are those with more stress-resistant traits or those more resistant to the stress characteristics of their organisation. Second, people eventually develop coping mechanisms to deal with stress. Because this takes time, senior members of the organisation are more likely to be fully adapted and should experience less stress.
Personal values, can moderate the relationship between potential stressors and actual stress. We know our values are relatively stable and enduring and where work requires us to engage in activity that transgresses our values, stress results.
Studies in three diverse organisations found that stress symptoms that participants reported before beginning a job accounted for most of the variance in stress symptoms reported nine months later. The researchers concluded that some people may have an inherent tendency to accentuate negative aspects of the world. If this is true, then a significant individual factor that influences stress is a person’s basic disposition. That is, stress symptoms expressed on the job may actually originate in the person’s personality type.
Employees react in response to their perception of reality, rather than to reality itself. Perception, therefore, will moderate the relationship between a potential stress condition and an employee’s reaction to it. Redundancies may cause one person to fear losing their job, while another sees an opportunity to get a large severance allowance and start their own business. So stress potential doesn’t lie in objective conditions; it lies in an employee’s interpretation of those conditions.
Social support—that is, collegial relationships with colleagues or supervisors—can buffer the impact of stress. This is among the best-documented relationships in the stress literature. Social support acts as a palliative, mitigating the negative effects of even high-stress environments.
Cultural differences
Research suggests that the job conditions that cause stress show some differences across cultures. One study revealed that whereas US employees were stressed by a lack of control, Chinese employees were stressed by job evaluations and lack of training.It doesn’t appear that personality effects on stress are different across cultures, however. One study of employees in Hungary, Italy, the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States found that Type A personality traits predicted stress equally well across countries. A study of 5270 managers from 20 countries found individuals from individualistic countries, such as Australia, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, experienced higher levels of stress due to work interfering with family than did individuals from collectivistic countries in Asia and Latin America. In collectivistic cultures, working extra hours is seen as a sacrifice to help the family, whereas in individualistic cultures, work is seen as a means to personal achievement that takes away from the family.
Evidence also suggests that stress is equally bad for employees of all cultures.
https://explorable.com/individual-differences-in-the-stress-response
Type A & Type B Personality
Famous researchers Friedman & Rosenman believed that people belong to either two basic types of behaviour or personality: Type A and Type B. According to the researchers, a person with a Type A personality is competitive, desires to be recognized, longs for development and advancement, wants to achieve goals and therefore, tends to rush in order for him to finish the tasks assigned to him. He is typically active and alert both mentally and physically.
The person with a Type B personality is the complete opposite of the Type A person. Why? It's because the Type B personality includes the apparent lack of motivation, drive, urgency, competitive spirit, and even ambition or desire. The person with a Type B personality is described as calm, relaxed and non-competitive. A third type, Type C, is described as a personality which involves passion for work and desire to achieve goals (typical of Type A), but when faced with stress, the person becomes apathetic (typical of Type B).
So What does This Have to Do With Stress Response?
In 1974, Friedman and Rosenman conducted a longitudinal study to prove their own theory of personality. The study involved 3200 male participants who were asked to answer questionnaires. Based on their responses, they were classified into three groups: Type A, Type B and Type C. The participants were then included in the second part of the study eight years later; that is, to know how they responded to stress in a matter of eight years. The results showed that 257 of all the participants had suffered from coronary heart diseases, a group of illnesses wherein stress is the most common cause.
What’s alarming is that 70% of the 257 participants had a Type A personality. This means that people who are classified in Type B respond to stress better than those in Type A.
Consequences of stress
Earlier exhibit 16.8
Physiological symptoms
Psychological symptoms
Behavioural symptoms
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Managing stress
Individual approaches
Employees take personal responsibility to reduce stress.
time-management techniques, increased physical exercise, relaxation training and expanded social support networks.
Organisational approaches
Wellness programs, improved personnel selection and job placement, training, realistic goal setting, job design, increased employee involvement, improved organisational communication, employee sabbaticals and corporate wellness programs.
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Individual approaches
Employees can take personal responsibility for reducing their stress levels. Individual strategies that have proven effective include time-management techniques, increased physical exercise, relaxation training and expanded social support networks.
Many people manage their time poorly. The well-organised employee, like the well-organised student, can often accomplish twice as much as the person who is poorly organised. So, an understanding and use of basic time-management principles can help individuals to better cope with tensions created by job demands. A few of the best-known time-management principles are (1) making daily lists of activities to be accomplished, (2) prioritising activities by importance and urgency, (3) scheduling activities according to the priorities set, (4) knowing your daily cycle and handling the most demanding parts of your job when you are most alert and productive, and (5) avoiding electronic distractions, such as frequently checking emails, which can limit attention and reduce efficiency. These time-management skills can help minimise procrastination by focusing efforts on immediate goals and boosting motivation even in the face of tasks that are less desirable.
Doctors recommend non-competitive physical exercise, such as aerobics, walking, jogging, swimming and cycling, as a way to deal with excessive stress levels. These forms of physical exercise increase the production of the brain’s feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins. The result over time is an increase in heart capacity, a lowering of the heart rate at rest and a mental—even meditative—diversion from work pressures. They have been found to even slow the physical and mental effects of ageing.
Individuals can teach themselves to reduce tension through relaxation techniques such as meditation, mindfulness and yoga or other deep breathing. The objective is to reach a state of deep physical relaxation, in which you feel somewhat detached from the immediate environment and from body sensations. Deep relaxation for 15 or 20 minutes a day, twice a day, releases tension and provides a pronounced sense of peacefulness, as well as significant changes in heart rate, blood pressure and other physiological factors. A growing body of research shows that simply taking breaks from work at routine intervals can facilitate psychological recovery and reduce stress significantly, and may improve job performance. These effects are even greater if relaxation techniques are employed.
Having friends, family or work colleagues to talk to provides an outlet when stress levels become excessive. Expanding your social support network gives you someone to listen to your problems and offer a more objective perspective on the situation than your own. It’s so important to be proactive and to try to address your stress head on. But apart from rumination, support from family, friends or spouses who help you recover from stressful work experiences can be mutually beneficial.
Organisational approaches
Several factors cause stress but those such as task and role demands can be modified or changed by management. Strategies to consider include improved personnel selection and job placement, training, realistic goal setting, job design, increased employee involvement, improved organisational communication, employee sabbaticals and corporate wellness programs.
Certain jobs are more stressful than others but, as we noted above, individuals differ in their response to stressful situations. Individuals with little experience or an external locus of control tend to be more prone to stress. Selection and placement decisions should take these factors into consideration. Management shouldn’t restrict hiring to only experienced individuals with an internal locus, but such individuals may adapt better to high-stress jobs and perform those jobs more effectively. Similarly, training can increase an individual’s self-efficacy, lessening job strain.
Individuals perform better when they have specific and challenging goals and receive feedback on their progress towards these goals. Goals can reduce stress as well as provide motivation. Specific goals that are perceived as being attainable clarify performance expectations. In addition, goal feedback reduces uncertainties about actual job performance. The result is less employee frustration, role ambiguity and stress. However, goal setting and goal-focused leadership tend to be more successful in reducing stress for the conscientious, but not for those who are low on emotional stability.
Job redesign gives employees more responsibility, more meaningful work, more autonomy and increased feedback, which can reduce stress because these factors give employees greater control over work activities and lessen dependence on others. But, as noted in the discussion of work design, not all employees want enriched jobs. The right redesign for employees with a low need for growth might be less responsibility and increased specialisation. If individuals prefer structure and routine, reducing skill variety should also reduce uncertainties and stress levels.
Role stress is detrimental to a large extent because employees feel uncertain about goals, expectations, how they will be evaluated and the like. Increasing employee involvement in decision making gives employees a voice in the decisions that directly affect their job performance, thereby increasing employee control and reducing role stress.
Increasing formal organisational communication with employees reduces uncertainty by lessening role ambiguity and role conflict. Given the importance that perceptions play in moderating the stress–response relationship, management can also use effective communication as a means to shape employee perceptions. Remember that what employees categorise as demands, threats or opportunities is an interpretation, and that interpretation can be affected by the effective communication by management.
Some employees need an occasional escape from the frenetic pace of their work. Some companies have begun to provide extended voluntary leave. These sabbaticals—ranging in length from a few weeks to several months—allow employees to travel, relax or pursue personal projects that consume time beyond normal holidays. Proponents say that sabbaticals can revive and rejuvenate workers who might otherwise be headed for burnout.
The final suggestion is organisationally supported wellness programs. These are now commonplace in Australian companiesand typically involve subsidised health screening, gym memberships, relaxation and holistic activities such as yoga, meditation and massage as well as weight-loss and tobacco-cessation programs. They focus on the employee’s total physical and mental condition.
Wellness programs - Organisationally supported programs that focus on the employee’s total physical and mental condition.
Most now provide psychological services, as well. The business case for such programs is compelling. A meta-analysis of 36 programs designed to reduce stress (including wellness programs) showed that interventions to help employees reframe stressful situations and use active coping strategies led to an appreciable reduction in stress levels.
In addition, a study of eight Canadian organisations found that every dollar spent on their comprehensive wellness programs
Summary
The real world is turbulent, requiring organisations and their members to undergo dynamic change if they are to perform at competitive levels.
Learning to adapt and manage change can help us progress and succeed at work.
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The need for change has been implied throughout this book. For instance, think about attitudes, motivation, work teams, communication, leadership, organisational structures and organisational cultures. Change was an integral part in our discussion of each.
If environments were perfectly static, if employees’ skills and abilities were always up-to-date and incapable of deteriorating, and if tomorrow were always exactly the same as today, organisational change would have little or no relevance to managers. But the real world is turbulent, requiring organisations and their members to undergo dynamic change if they are to perform at competitive levels.
Implications for managers
Consider that, as a manager, you’re a change agent in your organisation. The decisions you make and your role-modelling behaviours will help shape the organisation’s change culture.
Your management policies and practices will determine the degree to which the organisation learns and adapts to changing environmental factors.
Some stress is good. Low to moderate amounts of stress enables many people to perform their jobs better by increasing their work intensity, alertness and ability to react. This is especially true if stress arises due to challenges on the job rather than as the result of hindrances that prevent employees from doing their jobs effectively.
You can help alleviate harmful workplace stress for your employees by accurately matching the amount and nature of workloads to employees, so that the load is appropriate and the nature of the work is aligned with the employee’s job description, performance goals and performance appraisal.
You can provide managers with advanced training in identifying and managing ‘distress’ (or ‘bad’ stress) among staff members and provide employees with stress-management strategies, resources and responses to their concerns.
You can identify established and extreme stress in your employees when performance declines, turnover increases, health-related absenteeism increases and engagement declines. However, by the time these symptoms are visible, it may be too late to be helpful, so stay alert for early indicators and be proactive.
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Learning from Assessment 2
These are shared so you can take the learning and avoid losing marks in Assessment 3
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Learning from Assessment 2
These are shared so you can take the learning and avoid losing marks in Assessment 3
Introduction
Constitute 20% in Assessment 3
A good introduction clearly mention and make connection to the 3 topics in the context of this Assessment. You also provide an orientation of this report.
Literature review
Discussed in the Body of your essay constitutes 50% in Assessment 3
Not just a theoretical description but must be contextualised to the focal topic.
Also need to complement and apply some concepts/theories from the textbook or lecture materials.
Conclusion
Constitutes 20% in Assessment 3
A good conclusion wraps up the report and provide a key position on each topic you have selected for this Assessment.
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Learning from Assessment 2
References/structure/grammatical accuracy
Constitutes 10% in Assessment 3
Number each reference (for a long list) and arrange in alphabetical order
References must be in APA style
Require intext citation
References without in-text citation should not be included in the reference list
Do not excessively use “ “ – does not demonstrate understanding of the content.
Word count clearly stated on the first page of the essay
Use 1.5 line spacing, font 12 Arial or Times Roman
Absolutely no bullet points – each must be explained in essay format
Watch out for plagiarism as explained last week (and repeat in the next slide)
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Note on Plagiarism: Plagiarism is a breach of academic integrity. Submission found to contain plagiarised content will receive a fail grade. The forms of plagiarism include:
Copying lecture notes in its entirety.
Cutting and pasting information directly from the assessment case study.
Cutting and pasting information directly from Internet sources and without clear acknowledgement.
Quoting word for word from another’s work.
Paraphrasing the work of others by altering a few words, changing their order or closely following their structure without acknowledgement.
Unauthorised collaborating and colluding with other students.
Using a professional agency or individuals (ghost writers) in the production of your work.
‹#›
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Workshop – individual activity
Stressing out employees is your job
Some of the most admired business leaders argue that the only way to get the most out of people is to stretch them. Many business anecdotes and research evidence seem to back this view. “If you do know how to get there, it’s not a stretch target,” former GE CEO Jack Welch has said. “We have found that by reaching for what appears to be the impossible, we often actually do the impossible; and even when we don’t quite make it, we inevitably wind up doing much better than we would have done.”
But does this pose an ethical dilemma for managers? What if you learned that pushing employees to the brink came at the expense of their health or their family life? On the one hand, one may argue that employees should be responsible for their own welfare, and that it would be paternalistic, and encourage mediocrity, for organisations to “care for” employees. On the other hand, if your stretch goals mean your best employees are those who give it all for the organisation – even putting aside their own personal or family interests – is that what you wish your results as a manager to be?
Discussion questions:
Do you think a manager should consider stress when setting stretch goals for employees? If you answered no, what should a manager do if a valued employee complains of too much stress? If you answered yes, how might you consider stress in setting goals?
Post your answer in LearnJCU, subject homepage, Workshop Discussions – Workshop 10: Organisational change and Stress Management. Provide deep answers to demonstrate your knowledge and insights in this topic.
Then, respond to at least one other posts from your classmates. You need to post first before you can reply to others.
This discussion board will close on 25 Jan 2022, 5pm Singapore.
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34
Reminder – Assessment 3
Assessment three is due 27 Jan 2022, 23:59 hours Singapore.
This is an individual task.
Late submission will be considered as no submission and will not be graded.
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