Management Today: Coping with role stress in an organisation

At a recent staff meeting, an accountant said that it is not clear what he is supposed to do in his job.

"I don't have an opportunity to interact with other departments," said a sales manager. "My boss does not trust me. For every small thing he checks twice before approval," said another. "I cannot use my talents in this company."

These are a few examples of the aggrieved releasing their stress. How do you handle role stress? Is it by enforcing policies and procedures? Or by practice? Of course, in any organisation, employees must learn to cope with role stress.

It is good to encourage subordinates to talk freely at meetings so that they can voice their grievances. At the same time, it may not be appropriate to concentrate on discussing employees; role in a business meeting.

Discussing individual role problems may lead to politics. Despite having well written job descriptions and performance standards, people have difficulties in day-to-day work.

Working smoothly does not require a policy manual or delegation of authority. Whatever the quality of documents, policies and procedures you have printed and communicated to the staff, those statements will not help you much in better performance.

More than that, employees' behaviour need to be modified and protected. Several factors, including those related to personality, contribute to burnout.

For instance, at one company, a new manager scheduled meetings at 8.00am. He expected everyone to be present exactly at 8.00am. Two of his employees arrived ten minutes late. The boss ordered them to get out of the meeting room.

It is correct for that boss to expect the staff to be on time. But it is wrong to expect such behaviour without providing a meaningful working environment.

This company treats only top management very well and pays them hefty salaries, whereas the middle and junior level staff do not even get the minimum requirement to make both ends meet. So the majority of workers are always under stress.

The management should provide facilities to all staff.

How do we prevent burnout? When employees experience stress, they should be motivated to adopt ways of dealing with it as they cannot remain in a continual state of tension.

We should increase the capabilities or ways of dealing with it. But this should not be just for an individual to adopt. It also applies to top management which should develop capabilities in terms of creating resources to develop people.

Punishing an employee will not produce effective results. More often punishments are ineffective strategies to cope with stress.

If a member of staff feels that he is not trusted, he rejects the role he occupies. If the boss does not influence him to change such a feeling, he becomes ineffective.