EDITORIAL

Combating Workplace Stressors: Using Work-Life Initiatives as an OD Intervention

Michael Lane Morris
The forces of instability, complexity, and change are denitely on the rise in the corporate landscape. A closer examination indicates that seismic shifts are occurring in business strategy and internal and external organizational, structural, and human variables. Because of these turbulent forces of change, organizations and employees have experienced monumental stresses. As a result, it is anticipated that organizations and employees will need holistic interventions to adjust well. To illustrate the magnitude of this stress, a recent survey of full-time workers indicated that 79% experience a medium-to-high level of stress at their workplace. Additionally, more than 75% of employees believed that the current workers on-the-job stress is greater than it was a generation ago. As HRD professionals, we understand that individual and organizational stress of considerable magnitude makes our efforts to develop and unleash human expertise for the purpose of improving and maximizing performance more challenging. In the face of turbulent change, as human capital intervention specialists one of our primary goals is to alleviate or ameliorate stress by helping to make things better, and as a result produce positive outcomes for individuals and their organizations. This editorial therefore seeks to (1) briey review ve signicant changes in the corporate landscape that are producing considerable stress for individuals and organizations, (2) introduce a relatively new organizational development (OD) intervention strategywork-life initiativesthat is helpful in alleviating or ameliorating the impact of stressful change, and (3) identify ve business case outcomes associated with interventions designed to assist employees balance and integrate their work-life situation. So rst, lets explore some of the complex changes that are producing strategic, structural, and human stresses for individuals and organizations.

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Stressful Change Number One: Mergers and Acquisitions, Layoffs, and Spinoffs
As a business strategy to stimulate nancial growth, the rate and number of corporate layoffs, spinoffs, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have increased dramatically over the past ten to fteen years. Globally speaking, during 2004 an estimated thirty thousand acquisitions (one transaction every eighteen minutes) were completed. Through these upheavals, both organizations and employees experience incredibly stressful events. For organizations, stresses associated with culture assimilation and alignment, power struggles among executive leadership, organizational communication inefciencies, integration of HR and IT initiatives, the nancial and legal issues with due diligence, and selection and retention of key talent are increased. For employees, the stressful implications of organizational downsizing, restructuring, leadership changes, reduced motivation, relocation expectations, reporting relationships, changes in operating procedures, benet and compensation changes, and job insecurity are also increased. Although the initial corporate intent of these change efforts is to bolster competitive and economic advantage, outcome research on postmerger transitions has painfully revealed that organizations and employees do not adjust well. More important, the corporate objectives intended from the changes have not materialized. In fact, researchers have found that after M&A the failure rate of nancial and strategic objectives is approximately 75%. In most cases, these failures tend to stem from people-related issues.

Stressful Change Number Two: Globalization for Competitive Advantage

The accelerated push and pace toward globalization to achieve competitive advantage is another stressor experienced by organizations and employees. Through globalization, the world has grown smaller, quicker, and more competitive. To illustrate, futurist research projections suggest that by 2020 nearly 85% of the worlds largest economies will be Asian. Additionally, by 2020 fourfths of U.S. rms will have a foreign company among their top ve competitors. By 2030, globalization is expected to triple the global middle class from 400 million to 1.2 billion people, with an annual purchasing power of $4,000 to $17,000 per capita. Although these are futurist projections, it is not unreasonable to believe these projections about globalization will come true. For example, many of the biggest U.S. corporations (Ford, IBM) already have more employees working outside the United States than inside. Additionally, foreignowned rms already employ 5% of all U.S. workers. Companies are going global in an effort to reduce costs and enhance prot and productivity. For organizations and employees, becoming a highly effective global organization centers primarily on how to do business, not where. The emphasis on how is process-oriented; expectations for workers have drastically
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changed and come with organizational and human capital costs. In terms of increased stress for organizations, stresses associated with world trade competition and business interactions that include manufacturing, foreign investment, franchising, countertrade, technology, management of human capital, and strategic alliances have been made more challenging. For employees, globalization increases stresses associated with job security due to offshoring, expatriate assignments, repatriation, compensation and benet fairness, virtual collaboration, language and cultural differences, privacy, terrorism, and concerns about health, safety, and security. In a global marketplace, employees must expand their capacity to work in heterogeneous environments (such as virtual teams) and situations (multiple time zones) and with diverse stakeholders (co-workers, management, customers). Within the globalization context, work is conducted every day, 24/7, and the pile-up of stressful expectations on both organizations and their employees is considerable.

Stressful Change Number Three: The War on Talent

Compressed learning and production time cycles have been compounded by an overall decline in the availability of skilled and knowledgeable talent. The U.S. Department of Labor has indicated that the lack of skilled labor is no longer just an inconvenience for business. Companies are recognizing that a shrinking pool of talent means gaining or maintaining a competitive advantage in the twenty-rst century will be considerably challenging. For example, in the next 10 years, 52 million jobs will need to be lled with an available pool of 29 million workers, leaving a gap of 23 million jobs. For organizations, stresses stem from challenges such as workers with knowledge and skill deciencies, labor pool deciencies in the areas of professional and technical education, economic conditions capable of producing a higher level of turnover, and inability to create and maintain human capital strategies (career development opportunities, compensation and benet programs) to retain talent. For employees, stresses stem from a lack of meaningful and matched job assignments, frequently changing development opportunities with higher expectations (coaching, training, mentoring, performance feedback), culture fragmentation, lack of supervisor support (feeling devalued), job insecurity, and insufcient workforce growth when comparing new workforce entrants with retirements resulting in increased workload expectations for employees. While the war on talent surges forward in the years ahead, remaining competitive will be an enormous task and a stressful undertaking for many organizations and their employees.

Stressful Change Number Four: Increased Technological Sophistication

A second change has been the increased corporate dependence on and expansion of sophisticated work processes (knowledge management systems,
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performance management systems, lean manufacturing, Six Sigma) requiring technology and measurement. Few industrial advances have so affected how jobs are performed and human capital interacts as technology has. It is widely believed that knowledge and intellectual capital is the secret to competitive advantage. Studies indicate that by the year 2020 more than 80% of U.S. jobs will be technology-based and service-oriented, and just 20% will be manual. Over the past 100 years, owing to dependence on technology these percentages have inverted, with todays workers being expected to perform in six months what employees used to perform over a lifetime. For organizations, stress stems from issues such as needing to select the right vendors and products for accomplishing key business objectives, protecting privacy, developing and maintaining effective and efcient technologybased systems (knowledge management, intranets), training technology users (executives, managers, workforce), integrating performance technology systems with key operations, assessing performance in a diverse virtual workplace consisting of telecenters, telecommuting, teleconferencing, and telecommunication systems (email, instant messaging), and investigating inappropriate usage of technology (e-harassment, e-entertainment). In terms of stress for employees, contrary to employers expectations, employees are not able to update their knowledge, skills, and attitudes at the same pace as technological change. Stresses stem from the increased pace of automation and information ow as well as the impact of technology on physical health (ergonomic-related injuries causing musculoskeletal disorders such as carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis), psychological health (frustration with intrusiveness on personal and family time, anxiety with the inability to override control of intelligent-agent technology, isolation, lack of dependability, privacy), and relational health (virtual collaboration, teamwork). Clearly, technology has expanded organization and employee capacity, but it has also produced enormous stressor demands.

Stressful Change Number Five: Workforce Diversity

A nal shift has been the growing level of diversity of the workforce. Over the past 25 years, radical shifts have occurred in workforce demographics. As illustrative examples, this year, women and minorities represent 70% of the new labor force. By 2010, non-Caucasian laborers will represent 34% of the U.S. workforce. By the next decade, the inuence of globalization will be felt, as an estimated three-quarters of new workers will come from Asian countries. Besides the demographic shifts, the denition of diversity also continues to evolve. Diversity is no longer conned to surface-level characteristics associated with socioeconomics, age, language, disability, gender, and race. Instead, the denition expands to include deep-level aspects of lifestyle, personality, and preferences. Estimates indicate that only three in four organizations have established practices addressing workplace diversity.
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For organizations, stresses stem from learning how diversity affects productivity and competitive advantage (attracting and retaining talent, sales, and prots), developing and maintaining an inclusive corporate culture with vision and mission statements that will drive marketplace success but are also sensitive to the values and beliefs of employees and customers, addressing diversity-related compliance regulations, and offering training and establishing performance systems for managing the demands and expectations of four generations of workers. Additionally, stresses stem from managing an international workforce, the complexity of dening and redening what it means to be diverse, discovering how diversity has an impact on key performance indicators (absenteeism, productivity), leadership succession planning within the ranks of executives and middle management, possessing a workforce that is representative of the organizations customer base, and securing a leadership staff that is knowledgeable and skilled to serve a diverse workforce. For employees, stresses stem from such issues as a decrease in the ratio of traditional families (husband as breadwinner, wife as homemaker) to dual-income or single-parent families, more well-qualied women in the workforce, a larger number of women returning to work after pregnancy, and growth in the percentage of families expected to furnish caregiving to both children and aging parents.

Work-Life Initiatives: An OD Intervention Solution for Managing Change

Stress reduction solutions for assisting employees and their organizations in managing the changing corporate landscape are not easily found. One of the many ways in which progressive companies are managing corporate change and also becoming more competitive is through strategic implementation of interventions such as work-life policies, programs, practices, and benets. As an OD intervention solution, work-life initiatives can be an internal source of competitive advantage that is often difcult to replicate. Work-life initiatives assist employees in managing the challenging demands that are created by balancing the responsibilities of work with other important life activities, such as family. In many ways, work-life initiatives give employees a support system of healthy options that help them manage and cope with stressful changes inuencing their work and life events. This snapshot represents some of the work-life stressors employees and their organizations are facing: Absenteeism due to work-life stress costs companies nearly $300 billion a year. Employees with work-life conict are three times more likely to turn over. Half of mistakes and errors made by employees are due to work-life conict.
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Ninety percent of employees want more time with their family. Eighty-ve percent of employees have day-to-day family responsibilities. Forty-six percent of working parents have children under age 18 living at home. One-third of employees worry daily about child care. Seventy-eight percent of married employees live in a dual-income or dualcareer work-life situation. One-fourth of employees hold elder care responsibilities. Half experience at least one signicant stress-related work-life conict every three months. Seventy percent of employees report no balance exists in their work-life situation. In response, as HRD professionals we need to lead the charge in developing intervention solutions that assist employees in developing the necessary expertise, hardiness, and resiliency to effectively manage and integrate their work and life domains. Employees without these prerequisites will inadvertently frustrate and undermine other efforts to improve or enhance human capital performance. For example, instead of arriving at work overly distracted or overwhelmed by the concerns of nonwork activities, employees can arrive punctually, well prepared, hardy, and hopeful, with an eagerness to learn and be productive. A recent study supports this concern, indicating that a fourth of employees come to work ve or more days per year too stressed to be effective. Another 48% of employees come to work one to four days too stressed to be effective in their job assignments. Clearly, the level of stress has an impact on employee on-the-job effectiveness. As an OD intervention solution, there are a variety of available work-life interventions and numerous ways to implement them. The interventions can be grouped into the broad categories of time (ex time or ex schedule, familyrelated leave for sickness or school functions, paid time off), nancial assistance (credit unions, tuition reimbursement programs, exible spending accounts, long-term care insurance, child care subsidies), programs and services (EAP, wellness and tness programs, onsite vaccination programs), policies (telecommuting, diversity policy), and community-based programs (on-site or near-site child care, elder care resource and referral program). Recent studies have reported that companies are offering an average of nine work-life initiatives, with that number anticipated to grow in the years ahead. In terms of implementation, it is also important to understand that the presence of work-life initiatives is not enough to be effective. There must be a strategic game plan. It is generally believed that the greatest impact occurs when work-life initiatives are effectively bundled and aligned with the strategic goals of the organization. So success in selecting and implementing worklife initiatives begins with the strategic mission and goals of the organization.

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Work-Life Interventions: Five Business Case Outcomes

Among progressive-minded organizations, work-life issues have become a leading business concern. These companies believe that the return on investment from having work-life interventions available and accessible make it a highly valued intervention solution for assisting employees in dealing with the changing corporate landscape. Progressive companies understand that todays employees want and expect to have a life outside of work. For companies sensitive to addressing their employees work-life issues, interventions that are good for their employees are also good for them. In these organizations, work-life initiatives are a lever of change for producing higher-ordered effectiveness. In stark contrast, traditional-minded organizations, which have been insensitive to or ignored the need for work-life interventions, erroneously believe that what goes on outside work is none of their business, that work-life issues are genderbased, or that initiatives would be too costly to implement. Similarly, research has also shown that ignoring the needs of an employees work-life situation and not developing a work-life strategy to address these concerns is often a very unproductive business strategy for both employees and their employers. Thus, over the past 10 years organizations have gotten smarter about the importance of offering creative work-life solutions. Scores of studies have examined the impact on an organizations economic performance, as well as employee performance. For employees, researchers have found positive outcomes such as stronger employee loyalty, higher-quality work, increased productivity and protability, and operation costs decreased. For organizations, work-life initiatives also can help positively inuence a companys economic performance by having an impact on market share, revenue, protability, sales growth, and share price. Clearly, pacesetting companies have understood the strategic importance of these initiatives in contributing to their bottom line. One nationwide study found that only 2% of companies believed work-life initiatives had an unfavorable impact on their organizations bottom line. Heres why. Productivity Increases. The presence of work-life initiatives results in signicantly increased corporate productivity through better employee performance readiness, concentration and focus, improved innovation and creativity, better teamwork, increased training transfer, and reduced absenteeism, tardiness, and turnover. A high percentage of HR problems (absenteeism, tardiness, turnover) are inuenced by nonwork-related issues involving the family (marital difculties, parenting). For example, absenteeism due to emergency care giving can cost an employer $4,000 per year per employee with child care responsibilities and $1,200 per employee with elder care responsibilities. As HRD professionals, we can lead efforts to boost productivity by developing such services as temporary backup and emergency caregiving centers, consortium centers, information and referral call centers (sometimes called work-life resource centers), and ex-time schedules to assist employees in

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managing their nonwork involvements. Employees reward organizations that demonstrate awareness, sensitivity, and attention to work-life issues by being healthier and working effectively and efciently on behalf of the organization. Improved Recruitment and Retention, Reduced Turnover. Today, the average tenure of an employee with an organization is just over three years. In contrast, 50 years ago the average longevity of an employee with an organization was approximately 22 years. With the shrinking workforce talent pool, the need for companies to implement strategies to recruit, retain, and reduce turnover of their best-qualied talent has mushroomed. Being recognized as an employer of choice has become a strategic initiative for most work-life pacesetters. Studies have shown that companies with innovative and diverse work-life initiatives are extremely successful in nding and retaining the best talent. One nationwide study found that scheduling exibility was the most important factor inuencing new talent recruitment. Additionally, turnover is expensive and seriously erodes the bottom line. Depending on the exempt or nonexempt status of the employee, worker shortages can cost companies up to 350 percent of a positions annual wage. HRD professionals can stress the importance of such work-life initiatives as telecommuting, rapid reimbursement plans for travel and educational assistance, caregiving subsidies, relocation services, and exible work schedules. As OD interventions have been designed to address recruitment, retention, and turnover, they have been hugely successful in securing and keeping the best of the best. Improved Job Satisfaction, Morale, Loyalty, Commitment, Motivation, Organizational Citizenship, Volunteerism, and Engagement. Every company benets from employees who go the extra mile in paying attention to minor details, correcting small problems before they become bigger, and exerting that last ounce of energy to please the customer. This kind of effort is more likely to occur from satised, happy, fullled, committed, motivated, and engaged employees. For the past three decades, research by the Gallup organization on the U.S. workforce has determined that a majority of companies are not fully beneting from the strengths and talents of their existing workforce. Gallup notes the failure stems from corporations not implementing strategies to emotionally engage and compensate their workforce. Although the studies have determined that 30% percent of the U.S. workforce is engaged another 20% is actively disengaged. According to Gallup, this level of disengagement cost the U.S. economy nearly $400 billion annually. As an HRD intervention, one of the best ways to improve the bottom line is to assist employees in maintaining their level of engagement by being able to integrate their outside and nonwork roles into their working roles through programs such as job sharing and shift swapping, educational and time management workshops, e-newsletters that publicly recognize employees community service, and performance evaluations that award merit for employees extracurricular efforts.
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Improved Corporate Image, Ethical Behavior, Attracting Investors, and Enhancing Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty. Corporations benet from the image associated with being sensitive to employees needs. Worklife initiatives allow corporations to put a human face on their corporate image, leading stakeholders to believe that if the company is good to their employees and communities, its code of conduct and value systems must be properly aligned. In todays world of ethical misconduct and corporate scandal, investors are looking for signs within the workplace that point to corporate character, responsibility, and respect for others. Numerous studies have shown that when companies treat their employees well with progressive human resource programs such as work-life initiatives, stakeholder investment increases along with the long-term prots of the organization. Furthermore, studies have shown that more than 90% of people believe workers behave more ethically when they experience work-life balance. Pacesetting corporations that are committed to work-life initiatives also report higher customer satisfaction scores because their employees are not as distracted with the worries, anxieties, and turmoil of their nonwork obligations. Engaged employees are better able to convert one-time customers into satised customers, thereby bolstering prots per customer up to 100%. With OD intervention solutions, employees greatly benet from access to work-life initiatives such as elder care services, after school creativity camps, concierge services (dry cleaning delivery, grocery shopping), and emergency and back-up transportation services that allow employees to be fully engaged in their work-related roles. Retaining Women and Reenlisting an Aging Workforce. Work-life initiatives address everyones issues. Demographically, the workforce comprises numerous groups, many of whom are seeking career development and advancement opportunities. Two examples are women and older workers. Nearly half of the U.S. workforce is female, with a signicant percentage of women transitioning into pivotal leadership roles. The glass-ceiling effect that causes talented women to make career-limiting decisions is not good for business. A recent 2004 Catalyst report indicates that companies reluctant to recruit, retain, and actively promote women are already experiencing negative bottom-line effects. The Catalyst study suggests there is a positive correlation between bigger prots and the number of women found in senior leadership. The number of older workers (currently 18 million over age 55, or 20% of the workforce) will grow over the next decade. Companies have recognized the signicant intellectual capital being lost through retirement and therefore hedged their losses by initiating work-life initiatives such as gradual or phased retirement plans, mentoring programs, and ex and part-time scheduling to accommodate the needs of later-life workers who remain interested in making a valuable workforce contribution. Work-life initiatives are extremely useful in reenlisting and reengaging workers who might otherwise exit the workforce. For example, when a major life or family transition arises, such as the birth of a new baby or expanded
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elder care responsibilities, workers may believe that they are unable to maintain their former work schedule and choose to diminish the role to accommodate a greater nonwork role. HRD professionals can assist employees in accessing such work-life initiatives as telecommuting, concierge services, information through community service expos or fairs, long-term care insurance, assistance services (legal, mortgage, retirement, medical), and elder care case management services, thereby enabling employees to better negotiate and integrate the competing interests of work and life demands. To summarize the business case, work-life initiatives go far beyond the notion of being a good or nice thing to do for employees. As many corporate leaders have discovered, besides being good and nice for employees, work-life initiatives can be a strategic emphasis that aligns with the corporations values, norms, and culture and ultimately drives economic returns in market share, revenue creation, and share price. Work-life initiatives advance how, where, and when world-class corporations are doing business. As I have illustrated, work-life initiatives can enhance productivity; improve talent recruitment and employee retention; reduce turnover; improve job satisfaction, employee commitment, motivation, and engagement; improve corporate image; attract investors; enhance customer satisfaction; encourage female loyalty; and reenlist older employees. Work-life initiatives can also help positively inuence a companys economic performance, inuencing market share, revenue, protability, sales growth, and share price. As HRD professionals, we need to foster partnerships between employers and employees in response to the call of the dual agenda (addressing work and nonwork needs as equally important for employer and employee). As leaders responsible for the growth and development of human capital, we are well equipped to help organizations unlock corporate growth by implementing work-life initiatives capable of unleashing the highest forms of human capital performance and expertise. In doing so, we create a sustained competitive advantage that is impossible or nearly impossible to replicate. References
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Michael Lane Morris, Ph.D., CFLE is the President of The Academy of Human Resource Development. Dr. Morris is an Associate Professor of Management in The College of Business Administration at The University of Tennessee.
HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY DOI: 10.1002/hrdq