Preventing Stress in Organizations

"In its way, this is a groundbreaking book since it recognises that, no matter what the policy says, tackling organisational stress has to be implemented by normal, fallible people who happen to be managers - and that they could do with all the help they can get." (RoSPA Occupational Safety & Health Journal, 1 September 2011) "The three authors - all chartered occupational psychologists - have used their real-life experience and coupled it with a good understanding of research and theory to create an excellent "How to" book for line managers. I would go so far as to say this is almost an essential read for anybody with line-management responsibility and it also has an important educative role for strategic managers who need to understand exactly the psychological culture that will protect and support their organisation." People Management (July 2011)

Emma Donaldson-Feilder is a Director of Affinity Health at Work and a Chartered Occupational Psychologist. In addition to her roles as researcher and practitioner, working to improve employee well-being and engagement, she is the author of numerous publications, a regular conference presenter, and a media commentator on issues relating to health at work. Rachel Lewis is a Director of Affinity Health at Work, a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and a lecturer in Occupational Psychology at Kingston Business School. She combines her academic career with regular conference speaking, consultancy and training, focusing on the links between leadership, management and employee well-being. Joanna Yarker is a Director of Affinity Health at Work and a Chartered Occupational Psychologist. She has previously held posts at Goldsmiths, University of London and the University of Nottingham. She writes regularly for academic and trade journals, and offers guidance and training to public and private sector organizations focused on improving workplace health.

1 Introduction 1 What is Stress? 2 What Stress is Not: Common Misperceptions 3 Common Causes of Stress 4 Work-Related Stress and the Line Manager 5 Summary 9 References 9 2 Why managing stress is important: The business and legal reasons 11 The Business Case 11 The Costs of Work-Related Stress 12 Calculating the Cost of Stress to Your Business 19 What Should We Be Doing to Monitor these Costs? 23 The Legal Case 24 Legal Cases of Work-Related Stress 25 What Should We Be Doing to Comply with Legislation? 28 Summary 29 References 29 3 How to manage work-related stress 31 Prevention 32 Training and Development 35 Support 37 Organizational, Manager and Team, and Individual Level Interventions 38 What Should Our Organization Be Doing? 41 Where Does the Line Manager Fit In? 42 Summary 44 Reference 44 4 Developing a framework to promote positive manager behaviour 45 Rationale: The Need For a Stress Management Approach Focusing on Positive Manager Behaviour 46 Why We Took a Competency-Based Approach 49 The Research Underlying the Positive Manager Behaviour Framework and Approach 51 The Positive Manager Behaviour Framework 55 Evidence to Support a Positive Manager Behaviour Approach 56 Useful Resources 64 References 65 5 Respectful and responsible: Managing emotions and having integrity (management competency 1) 67 Integrity 68 Managing Emotions 75 Considerate Approach 81 Summary 85 References 87 6 Managing and communicating existing and future work (management competency 2) 89 Proactive Work Management 90 Problem Solving 101 Participative/Empowering 106 Summary 119 References 121 7 Managing the individual within the team (management competency 3) 123 Personally Accessible 124 Sociable 132 Empathetic Engagement 137 Summary 144 References 145 8 Reasoning/managing difficult situations (management competency 4) 147 Managing Conflict 148 Use of Organizational Resources 157 Taking Responsibility for Resolving Issues 164 Summary 168 References 169 9 Overcoming barriers to positive manager behaviour 171 Personal Level Barriers 172 Individual Work or Job Level Barriers 176 Team and Relationship Level Barriers 182 Organizational and Wider Level Barriers 186 Reference 189 10 Supporting managers to change their behaviour 191 Behaviour Change Is Possible 192 Theories of Behaviour Change 193 Implementing Behaviour Change Interventions 195 References 207 11 Is stress management just good management? 209 Comparing Positive Manager Behaviour with General Management/Leadership Competency Frameworks 211 Implications for Practice 214 How to Do Your Own Mapping 215 How to Identify Missing Positive Manager Behaviour Elements 224 How to Integrate Missing Positive Manager Behaviour Elements 225 Valuing People Management Skills 227 References 230 12 The way forward 231 Where are You Now? 231 Starting Out - Understanding Positive Manager Behaviour and How It Might Be Useful 233 Deciding How to Use Positive Manager Behaviour 234 Gaining Buy-In 240 Applying Positive Manager Behaviour 244 Sustainable Impact 250 References 253 Appendix 255 Index 261