UNIT – I Lesson 1 HRM – AN OVERVIEW Lesson Outline Nature of ...

of work with responsibilities of personal lives, impersonal and dehumanizing effect of use
of high technology, extreme conflicts and so on. Stress in modern organizations occurs
due to the demands of meeting targets and deadlines at work. For many employees,
change creates stress. A dynamic environment characterized by takeovers, mergers,
restructurings, forced retirements and mass retrenchments has created a large number of
employees who are stressed out.
For example, General Electric, under the leadership and guidance of its CEO Jack
Welch introduced the formula called 20:70:10 wherein the whole workforce was divided
into three categories namely the top 20% of best performers, the middle 70% of average
performers and the bottom 10% of poor performers. While the first two groups were
rewarded in two different ways, people in the third group were earmarked for summary
dismissal. As a consequence, employees wanting to save their jobs at each year were
supposed to have performed not only better than last years and better than the targets, but
also better than at least 10% of the people. Since the process of eliminating continued
every year, the performance standards kept rising each year for all the employees. This
resulted in a highly stressful working situation for employees of the organization, quite a
few among them succumbed to stress related disorders.
Quelling negative stress and maintaining functional stress, involves eliminating or
modifying the sources of stress, developing optimism and hope, taking good care of one’s
body, using relaxation techniques, talking out of one’s problems with others, rewarding
oneself for a job done well and leading a complete, satisfying personal and social life. Job
stress stems from any situation in the workplace which a person perceives to be fearful.
Office politics is fear-producing to many employees. To defend oneself against highly
stress producing, devious and unethical office politics, an employee must take steps like
documenting one’s side of the story, confronting the devious persons and maintaining a
consistent record of high levels of integrity and good performance outcomes. Employers
must provide support and nurturing and also strive to create an environment that is
planned, efficient and orderly. Communication to employees should be timely, accurate
and appropriate.
Stress could be sometimes anticipatory in which an arousal is stimulated by an
expected stressor. This is often caused by inadequate preparation or pessimistic feelings
by the victims of stress. Current stress is arousal that takes place during an experience.
Stress could also be residual at times, in which the arousal continues to remain even long
after the stressful event has passed. Inability to overcome the trauma of an event is the
cause of residual stress. Lack of support during and first aid immediately after stressors