STRESS AND COUNSELING

Chapter 15

Objectives:
o To understand the Role of Stress in Employee Health
o To discuss the Extreme Forms of Stress Reactions
o To know the causes and symptoms of Stress
o To elaborate the Organizational effects of stress
o To enumerate the actions that may prevent or reduce stress
o To enumerate the different Counseling functions; and
o To differentiate the types of Counseling and their usefulness.

Stress
Is the general term applied to the pressures people feel in life. The presence of stress at
work is almost inevitable in many jobs. When stress becomes excessive, employees develop
various symptoms of stress that can harm their job performance and health, and even threaten
their ability to cope with the environment. People who are stressed may become nervous and
chronically worried. They are easily provoked to anger and unable to relax. Stress also leads to
physical disorders, because the internal body system changes to try to cope with stress.

Typical Negative Symptoms of

Unmanaged Stress

Extreme Products of Stress

Stress can be either temporary or long-term, and range from mild to severe. If stress is
temporary and mild, most people can deal with it or at least recover from the effects rather
quickly.
Employees need Resilience
1. Resilience or capacity to handle short-term tensions and bounce back from difficulties.
Resilient individuals often have achieved a balanced life away from work, have to learned
to set realistic goals, adapt quickly to change, and keep each irritation in perspective.
They still face the same amount of stress that others face, but they handle it better.
According to the theory developed by Hans Salye, the human body, when faced stress, moves
through three phases:
1. Alarm (fight to fight)
2. Resistance (or, alternatively, adaption)
3. Exhaustion
2. Burnout- a situation in which employees are emotionally exhausted, develop cynicism
about their work, and feel unable to accomplish their professional goals.

Symptoms and Effects of Burnout

Workaholics may place high expectations on themselves and others and, as a result,
experience difficulty achieving a desired work-life balance. Burnout is a distinct
possibility for them.
When workers became burnout, they are more likely to complain, to attribute their errors
to others, to magnify their dominant traits, and to highly irritable.
Burnout also leads to increased absenteeism and decreased quality and quantity of job
performance.
A tragic product of burnout by workers in Japan, Korea, and other Asian countries is called
karroshi or sudden death at work. This is believed to be triggered by overwork, culminating in a
fatal heart attack or stroke.

Handling Toxic Emotions with Compassion

Managerial actions- whether intentional or unintentional can produce toxic pain for their
recipients. The large amount of pain incurred requires toxin handlers who can provide assistance,
build a culture that values compassion and act to alleviate the suffering of others.

Toxin handlers rely on five major approaches:

1. Listening- providing attention and consideration
2. Caring- providing support and time for healing
3. Buffering pain- building relationship and displaying personal courage
4. Facilitating escape- helping people extricate themselves from painful situations
5. Transforming pain- using coaching to frame the pain in constructive ways
Compassionate leaders put the feelings of people first, practise professional intimacy and act to
eliminate toxic sources of organizations.

Common suggestions for personal coping include:

Becoming more realistic about career expectations
Taking periodic short breaks to refresh oneself
Developing an exercise program
Adopting a diversionary hobby
Immersing oneself in helping others (volunteering in community activities)

3. Trauma- another product of stress, occurs following a major threat to ones security. The
event could be a natural disaster, an organizational crisis, dramatic employee abuse by
the employer or a personal job loss.

Three(3) Types of Trauma that have achieved notoriety in recent years:

Workplace trauma
Layoff survivors sickness
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder arising from workplace violence

Workplace trauma, which is the disintegration of employees self-concepts and beliefs in their
capabilities. It can arise from harassment at work, wrong termination, discrimination, or an
employees perceived incapacity to meet evolving performance expectations.

Attitudinal clues to workplace trauma include severe moodiness, concentration difficulties, and
alienation, in addition to the more distinctive behaviors of tardiness, absenteeism and accident-
proneness.

A common source of workplace trauma is sudden job loss with its potentially crushing effect on
ones self-esteem.

Layoff Survivors Sickness (also known as post-layoff survivor disorder), with feelings of
uncertainty/insecurity, anger, guilt and distrust

Workplace violence sometimes a troubled employee takes dramatic and harmful physical action
against co-workers, managers, or company property. These violent, anger-based acts can
provoked fights, destruction of property, or use of weapons to threaten, harm, or even murder
others.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)- the shock of sudden and dramatic violent incidents
often produces immediate stress-related symptoms. More significantly, the effects of these
traumatic crises may last for years and require lengthy treatment.

Causes of Stress
An important first step is to examine and understand the causes of stress. Conditions that
tend to cause stress are called stressors. Individual differences among employees may cause
some to interpret these stressors as positive stress (which stimulates them), while others
experience negative stress (which detracts from their effects). As a result, either constructive or
destructive consequences may arise for both the organization and the employee.

Job-Related Causes of Stress

Work overload
Time pressures
Poor quality of supervision
Insecure job supervision
Lack of personal control
Inadequate authority to match responsibilities
Role conflict and ambiguity
Differences between company and employee values
Change of any type, especially when it is major or unusual
Frustration
Technology with inadequate training or support

Example of job stress

1. Work overload and time deadlines put employees under pressure and lead to stress.
Often these pressures arise from management, and a poor quality of management can
cause stress.

2. Role conflict and ambiguity are also related to stress. In situations of this type, people
have different expectations of an employees activities on a job, to employee does not
know what to do and cannot meet expectation.
Frustration
Another cause of stress is frustration. It is a result of a motivation (drive) being blocked
to prevent one from reaching a desired goal.

Defense mechanisms - A person is trying to defend his/her self from the psychological effects of
the blocked goal.
Types of Reaction
1. Aggression-demanding better treatment and threatening to appeal to higher
management.
2. Apathynot responding to the job or associates
3. Withdrawal- asking for transfer or quitting your job
4. Regression- less mature behavior such as self-pity and pouting
5. Fixation- constantly blames your supervisor for both your problems and problems of
others regardless of the facts.
6. Physical disorder such as an upset stomach
7. Substitute goals becoming the leader of powerful informal group in office politics

Sources of Frustration
1. Frequency and Severity of Hassles conditions of daily living that are perceived to
threaten or diminish ones emotional well-being.
2. Abusive supervision causes problems abusive supervisors engage in tyrannical
actions that demean those around them. These workplace bullies intentionally engage
in repeated verbal and even nonverbal mistreatment of employees.
3. Frustration and management practice the stronger ones motivation or drive toward
a blocked goal, the stronger ones frustration will be, other things being equal. If
motivation is lacking, then very little frustration is likely to develop.

Stress and Job performance

When there is little or no stress, job challenges are absent and performance tends to be
low. As stress increases, performance tends to increase, because stress helps a person call up
resources to meet job requirements. Constructive stress is a healthy stimulus that encourages
employees to respond to challenges. Eventually stress reaches the peak or a plateau that
corresponds approximately with a persons top day-to-day performances capability. Performance
begins to decline at some point because excess stress interferes with performance.

Stress Vulnerability
1. Stress Threshold - the level of stressors (frequency and magnitude) that the person can
tolerate before negative feelings or stress occur and adversely affect performance.
2. Perceived Control employees who have a substantial degree of independence,
autonomy, and freedom to make decisions handle work pressures better.
3. Type A and type b people type A people are aggressive and competitive, set high
standards, are impatient with themselves and others, and thrive under constant time
pressures. Type B people appear more relax and easy going. Hey accept situations and
work within them rather than fight them competitively.
Approaches to Stress Management
1. Prevent or control it
2. Escape from it
3. Learn to adapt to it (handle its symptoms)

These often involve cooperative efforts among employees and management and may include:
1. Social Support is the network of helpful activities, interactions, and relationships
that provides an employee with satisfaction of important needs. There are four types
of Support in a total network:
Instrumental (task assistance)
Informal
Evaluative
Emotional
2. Relaxation Efforts involves quiet concentrated inner thought in order to rest the
body physically and emotionally. The ideal ingredients of this relaxation effort
involve:
A comfortable position in a relatively quiet location
Closed eyes and deep comfortable breaths
Repetition of a peaceful word, or focus on a pleasant mental image
Avoidance of distracting thoughts and negative events
Soothing background music
3. Personal Wellness program may include disease screening, health education, and
fitness center. Health care specialist can recommend practices to encourage changes
in lifestyle.

Common Personal Strategies for Managing Stress

1. Resist working long hours or accepting overtime
2. Volunteer for flextime or other alternative work schedules
3. Identify the people who causes stress and avoid them
4. Maintain a healthy diet and eat regularly
5. Obtain regular exercise and get enough sleep
6. Avoid procrastination-now
7. Set reasonable goals for yourself
8. Develop a simple method of organizing things, and adhere to it.
9. Step back from stress and decide whether you need to fight every battle
10. Consult with a trusted friend before becoming involved in new activities
11. Develop a balance of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual capacities
12. Find or create opportunities to laugh and do so frequently.
EMPLOYEE COUNSELING

Counseling is discussion with an employee of a problem that usually has emotional content in
order to help the employee cope with it better.
It is an exchange of ideas and feelings between two people normally a manager, and
employee, so it is an act of communication.
Counseling seeks to improve employee mental health and well-being, as well as aid them
in meeting organizational expectations. Good mental health means that people:
1. Feel comfortable about themselves
2. Can relate well to other people
3. Are able to meet the demands of life

Need for Counseling

The need for Counseling arises from a variety of employee problems, including stress.
When this problem exists, employees benefit from the understanding and guidance that
Counseling can provide. For example, one employee feels insecure about retirement. Another
employee is hesitant to take the risk required by a promotion. A third employee may exhibit
diminished job performance. In all cases, Counseling is necessary.

What Counseling can do?

1. To improve employees self-confidence
2. Understanding
3. Self-control
4. Ability to work effectively

Functions of Counseling
1. Advice Telling a person what you think should be done; coaching
2. Reassurance Giving people courage and confidence that they are
capable of facing a problem
3. Communication Providing information and understanding
4. Release of Emotional Helping a person feel more free of frustrations and stress
tension
5. Clarified Thinking Encouraging more coherent, rational, and mature thought
6. Reorientation Encouraging an internal change in goals, values, and
mental models
The Managers Counseling Role
The Counseling functions usually can be performed successfully by skilled and
experienced managers. Managers are important counsellors because they are the ones in day-to-
day interaction with employees. If managers close their eyes to the emotional problems of
employees and refuse to discuss them, they appear to be saying to employees, I dont care about
you, just your work. For this reason, all managers from lowest to the highest levels, need training
to help them understand problems of employees and counsel them effectively.

Types of Counseling
1. Full Direction or Directive Counseling is the process of listening to an employees
problem, deciding with the employee what should be done, and then telling and
motivating the employee to do it. Directive counseling mostly accomplishes the
counseling function of advice but it also may reassure, communicate, give emotional
release, and to a minor extent clarify thinking. Reorientation is seldom achieved in
directive counseling.

2. No Direction or Nondirective or client-centered Counseling is the opposite end of the

continuum. It is the process of skilfully listening to and encouraging an employee to
explain troublesome problems, understand them, and determine appropriate solutions. It
focuses on the employee rather than on the managers roles as judge and adviser thus, it
is employee centered.

3. Participative Counseling or cooperative counseling is a mutual relationship that

establishes a cooperative exchange of ideas to help solve an employees problem. It is
neither wholly manager-centered nor wholly employee-centered.

Types of Counseling According to Amount of Direction that Counsellor Provides

Major Differences between Nondirective and Directive Counseling
Nondirective Counseling Directive Counseling
Counseling Method The employee primarily controls The manager primarily
the direction of the conversation controls the direction of the
and does most of the taking conversation and does most of
the taking
Responsibility of Solution Employee Manager
Status of Participants Both parties are on an equal level The manager is clearly
superior to the employee
Role of Participants The employee is psychologically The employee is
independent as a person, choosing psychologically dependent
a solution and growing in ability role as a problem-solver tends
to make choices in the future. to limit the employees
personal growth.
Emphasis placed Psychological adjustment is Solution of current problems
paramount, with deep feelings and is emphasized, with feeling
emotional problems accented. and emotions often ignored.

Iceberg Model of Counseling

Iceberg model of counseling recognize that sometimes more feelings are hidden under the
surface of a counselees communication than are revealed. For this reason, they constantly
encourage the counselee to open up and reveal deeper feelings that may help solve the
employees problem.
 Republic of the Philippines
University of Antique
College of Business and Accountancy
Sibalom, Antique

STRESS and COUNSELING

Group 7

Submitted by:
Floramae Joy Macuja
Cenniel Bautista
Winemar F. Canonicato
Ivy Lamprea

Submitted to:
Mrs. Ann Lotilla

01 March 2017
 Republic of the Philippines
University of Antique
College of Business and Accountancy
Sibalom, Antique

STRESS and COUNSELING

Group 7

Submitted by:
Floramae Joy Macuja
Cenniel Bautista
Winemar F. Canonicato
Ivy Lamprea

Submitted to:
Mrs. Ann Lotilla

01 March 2017