“Business as usual”: The slogan remains the same, but the typical employee’s mind-set? It’s far from the same.
“The funny thing is, my dad worked at one place for 35 years, and he never felt like his job was in jeopardy,” says John, an employee at a local company that—like many others—recently made massive cuts. “I’ve worked at four major companies in St. Louis, and three of them have made layoffs.” He recalls showing up at a previous job to find his office mate’s cubicle empty and the receptionist crying. At another, he was the one laid off. Now he’s watching the same thing happen at his current company. “People who have never been through it don’t know what it’s like,” he says.
Outside of a miraculous economic turnaround, what’s his greatest hope? “You might be lucky to get laid off first, and then you have an opportunity to get a job,” he says, speculating that laid-off workers from other companies are filling any remaining local openings in his field.
By now, it’s undeniable: Workplace stress has taken on a new meaning. Sure, there are still looming deadlines, office politics and endless meetings, but those things pale in comparison to the alternative. So to seek a remedy for workplace stress, both real and imagined, we talked to four local experts—from an industrial-organizational psychology professor to a life coach. What did we find? The business of stress should be anything but usual.
The Counselor
The recession is real, and James Moll has the numbers to prove it. Before I can ask my first question, the VP of counseling at social-service provider Provident, Inc., says, “We did some research on this the other day. At the end of October, we ran a report on the first 10 months of 2008 versus all of 2007.”
He begins rattling off numbers that might make even Suze Orman feel blue. “In 2007, we had 40 clients who were having problems with anxiety. In just the first 10 months of 2008, we had 95.” The string of stats continues, with the number of cases for depression, poverty and unemployment ballooning over the past year. He concludes, “You’re looking at major issues doubling and tripling.”
Today, the family-oriented counseling service gets about 100 crisis calls per day. Provident, with the help of United Way’s 2-1-1 referral hotline, directs families to local services like food banks and physicians. Far too often, people will call up after losing their job and be utterly overwhelmed. “Sometimes just working with them to verbalize what exactly it is takes them away from an overwhelming image to ‘Oh, I just need to make sure that I can cut my budget by this much, and I’ll be fine,’” says Moll.
Breaking up challenges into smaller components is a great place to start. “Everybody puts that other foot forward when they have a little success,” he says.
The Motivational Speaker
Scott Shepherd despises a certain mustachioed TV therapist. “People like Dr. Phil, who say, ‘Build a bridge and get over it,’ do a disservice,” he says, launching into a diatribe about mass-marketed schmaltz. “You know that book The Secret? I hate that stupid book.”
As you can probably tell, Shepherd isn’t your typical motivational speaker and author. His rah-rah speech about stress goes like this: “It’s hard. It’s a bitch. It’s a bear to do this stuff.”
Inspiring, right? But besides being inspirational, the former counselor makes a lot of sense. “I always hate the phrase ‘learning how to manage your stress.’ That sounds like a course in how to manage your misery,” says Shepherd. “Ask, ‘What can I do?’ I can’t just sing happy songs and turn around, and it will all be gone.”
Shepherd mentions working with financial firms at the outset of the recession. “I would say to people, ‘If you get up and you’re not sure what kind of day you’re going to have until you see the numbers, your day is already screwed.’” He seems to take an existential approach to stress, citing Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. “There’s a quote, and I’m paraphrasing, that life can rise up and take everything away from you that matters except your ability to decide how you will handle it.”
Pressed for specifics, Shepherd offers this: “First, don’t sit around at lunch and complain. Look at what you do. Break your routines.” He lists other suggestions: Find a refreshing ritual, like a walk at sunset or a favorite song; don’t obsess about things beyond your control; socialize with people who bring out the best in you; read books about others who faced adversity; join an organization outside work. It’s about examining your day and asking how it could be improved, he says.
“I always tell people awareness is everything. I have to look in the mirror and say, ‘What did I do today?’ And if I say, ‘Nothing,’ at some point I need to kick my own butt.”
The Consultant
Here’s the thing about stress: “Our bodies don’t differentiate between real and perceived stress,” says Jan Cloninger, author, life coach and consultant. “That’s why it’s so important that we learn to control our response to perceived stressors.” She offers an all-too-familiar example: leaving for a nearby meeting five minutes before it starts and getting trapped behind a slow driver. “You start thinking, ‘If I’m late, what am I going to do? If I get fired, how will I pay the rent?’” she says. “The situation is the same, but it’s all that chatter inside your head that really produces the stress.”
Then there’s the chatter around us: enough bad news to make Chicken Little seem like Nostradamus. “I try to help people realize stress isn’t caused by the circumstances we’re in, but by what we tell ourselves about the circumstances we’re in,” she says. It’s even more important because stress creates additional problems like tense muscles and elevated hormone levels that can lead to serious illnesses, she adds.
Cloninger’s cure? Meditation. “It teaches you how to get control over all that chatter in your mind. When you catch yourself going off into worries and fears that feed stress, you’re able to say, ‘Stop it,’ and just be in the moment.” And like Shepherd, she underscores the importance of life outside the office. “If your entire life is wrapped around your work, then you might need to step back and find some balance,” she says. “That way if one thing is askew at work, it’s not the totality of your life.”
The Industrial-Organizational Psychology Professor
Kevin Fox has news for some CEOs: “Downsizing is a disaster,” says the assistant professor of industrial-organizational psychology at Saint Louis University. Research done in the late ’80s concluded that shrinking companies were typically gone or bought out within five years, he says. “Organizations should ask, ‘How are we going to survive but not destroy our organizational core in the process?’” he says.
Fox’s suggestion? Psychological contracts. “It’s basically a social contract on the organizational level.” In other words, a company should ensure employees are receiving what they expect. Procedural fairness, in which companies outline and abide by standardized procedures—whether for cuts or raises—is one such way. “People are biologically prone to be overly reactive to stress, so communication can get them to understand what’s going on.”
He cites the Affect Infusion Model, a theory created in the ’90s that explains how mood affects decisions, especially during stressful situations. “This is part of what underlies the whole stock market bubble,” says Fox. “When you’re feeling threatened, you’re more prone to give undue credibility to information that’s consistent with what you’re already thinking.”
While he discourages speculating about the unknown, he suggests employees guard against naiveté. “Make contingency plans,” he says. “Ask, ‘What’s my financial situation, resources, marketability, professional network, et cetera?’” He suggests trying to minimize health hazards, such as smoking or poor eating habits, because stress can exacerbate health problems—especially when coupled with cuts to health insurance. Think about how you can save emergency funds in case the worst-case scenario becomes a reality. “And for the love of God, make adaptable plans,” he says.
The Success Story
One St. Louisan did just that. Brian Pelletier at one time worked at a local PR firm. The 41-year-old former executive would check his inbox at home each morning and answer a slew of emails from overseas clients. It didn’t get any easier when he arrived at the office. The average day consisted of meetings, responding to breaking news, press releases and more emails. “I think the biggest stresses came from trying to produce something that would make everyone happy and never really being able to do that,” he says.
At the onset of the recession, he began looking for other opportunities. That’s when a friend announced she was selling her handmade-chocolate business, Kakao Chocolate. “As soon as she said that, I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” he says. Pelletier resigned last June to learn how to make chocolate and to take over the company. And despite the poor economy, the company quickly made a profit under Pelletier’s stewardship.
“I think the biggest change to the stress level is the reward side of things,” he says. “Now I’m making something that
everybody enjoys.”
