Ravalier PhD Theis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

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The previous section has provided an example of some of the subjective, emotional,
behavioural and disease-related outcomes that have often been associated with chronic stress
in the workplace. The JDC(S) model of occupational stress argues that stress becomes strain
via either the stress, or iso-stress hypothesis. One of the most convincing and wide-ranging
arguments for the adoption of the JDCS as a tool for exploration of workplace stress was
provided by the Whitehall-II study (Marmot et al., 1991). The study is longitudinal in nature,
included the participation of over 10,000 civil servants, and is one of the most powerful
studies of the relationship between stress, work and health. Indeed, the factors identified are
being claimed to be causal in nature, with control and social support being found to have very
strong effects on the stress outcome. Some of the impacts on organisations that stress
outcomes can have are now evidenced.
1c) Organisational Costs of Stress: Financial
Stress in the workplace costs all organisations large and small a
great deal of money each year. These financial costs come from a number
of sources within the organisation, such as dealing with the stress-related
illnesses as evidenced above, and compensation claims due to workers
becoming ill and other adverse effects due to stress in the workplace.
However, in addition to these obvious costs there are further expenses
that are not explicitly seen as obvious outcomes. Indeed, it is estimated
that 10% of the gross national product (GNP) lost in the UK per annum is
due to job-generated stress outcomes such as sickness absence, turnover,
increased recruitment and selection costs, in addition to medical outlays
and compensation claims (Arnold, 2005).
Absenteeism, i.e. employees being frequently or habitually absent
from work, is an obvious cost to employers which is often very hard to
define monetarily. There are two general elements to absenteeism:
frequency and duration, although frequency of absenteeism has shown to
be the more reliable of the two monetary measures of the costs of
absenteeism (Melamed et al., 1995). People who are having a hard time
dealing with stress in their jobs are more likely to call in sick or have a day
off (Westman & Etzion, 2001). In the United Kingdom the Chartered
Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD, 2011a) found that stress was