STRESS MANAGEMENT

Causes of stress
• Extraorganisational stressors

• Organizational Stressors

• Group stressors

• Individual stressors
Extra-organizational stressors
• Social and Technological changes
• Family problems
• Relocation
• Economic and financial conditions
• Race and class
• Residentially and community problems
Organizational stressors
• High job stress
• Job role
• Poor working conditions
• Organizational politics
• Poor work relationship
Macro level organizational stressors
• Administrative policies and strategies- Downsizing, competitive pressure, merit pay plans,
rotating work shifts, bureaucratic rules, advanced technology
• Organizational structure and design- centralization and formalization, line and staff conflict,
specialization, role ambiguity, no opportunity for promotion,
• Organizational processes- tight control, only downward communication, little performance
feedback, centralized decision making, punitive appraisal system
• Working conditions- crowded work area, noise, poor lighting, physical and mental strain
Group stressors
• Absence of group cohesiveness
• Absence of support from group members
• Conflicts related to the group
Individual stressors
• Role conflict and ambiguity
• Type – A characteristics
• Locus of control
• Learned helplessness
• Self efficacy
Strategies to cope with stress
• Individual strategies

• Organizational strategies
Individual strategies
• Problem focused
-Time management
-Requesting others for help
-Shifting to another job
• Emotion focused strategies
-Relaxation
-Exercise
-Recreation
-companionship
Organizational strategies
• Problem focused
-Redesigning the job
-Proper selection and placement
-Training
-Team building
-Providing various day care facilities
• Emotion focused
-Promoting open communication
-Employee assistance program
-Mentoring
-Wellness program and personal time off
Impact of Outsourcing and IT on Organizations
OUTSOURCING
 Regular use of an external third party instead of internal resources
 For functions like production of a single operation, a product, order fulfillment, product design,
network infrastructure support etc.
 Outside an organisation’s core competencies
 Done to reduce cost, time , improve quality etc.

Cost saving strategy

• Used to reduce costs by transferring portions of work to outside suppliers rather than completing
it internally.
• American accountants outsourced basic operations of tax return. Designing creative complex
strategies, like tax avoidance, tax sheltering , managing customer relationships
Comparative advantages
• More affordable to purchase a good from companies with comparative advantages than to produce
it internally
Ex- Videocon for it’s Bazooka Model gets components from Philips India
Ex – Videocon and LG
Functions typically outsourced
• Information technology
• Human Resources
• Real estate management
• Personnel training
EX- MDI , Gurgaon
Criticism
• Low loyalty and work ethic
• Poor quality of customer service and technical support
• Threat to livelihood of domestic workers
• High worker insecurity
• Security issues
Ex- In April ,2005 – theft of US$350000 of four CITI bank customers- Indian call center workers
in pune acquired passwords to customers account and transferred money to their own account opened
under fictitious names.
Suggestions for outsourcing to be successful
• Consider the reasons- Outsourcing must be done to enhance customer experience
• Appointment of internal relationship manager to oversee relationship
• Values
 • Cost-effectiveness
• No blame game
Information Technology
• Decision making
• Information sharing
• Culture of openness
• Internet , intranet, teleconferencing
• Panchayati raj
• Media and research
• E- business
Negatives
• Widening gap between those who have access to technology and who do not
• Reading habits
• Cognitive thinking
Types of Teams
• Problem solving team

• Self managed work team

• Cross functional team

• Virtual team
Problem solving team
• Composition – 5-12 members from same department
• Meet for a specific number of hours per week to discuss ways of improving quality , efficiency
and work environment.
• Temporary team deals with some specific problem in the work place
• Find out solution and recommend for implementation
• Quality circle is a commonly used problem solving team
Quality circles
• First introduced in Japan
• Small no of people from same work area or doing similar kind of work
• Meets regularly for about an hour every week
• To identify , analyze and resolve work related problems
• Nor folk General Hospital – X ray processing time
Self-managed work teams
• Autonomous teams
• 10-15 members
• Designing work schedules, making operating decisions and handling various work related
problems.
• Authority to implement decisions
• Selection of their own members and performance evaluation
• GE, Hewlett packard, Honey well, xerox, GM, PepsiCo.
Cross Functional Teams
• Members are from same hierarchical level but form different departments
• Task force and committees
• BMW, GM,Ford, Chrystler
Virtual Teams
• Videoconferencing, E-mails, Networking sites, teleconferencing etc.
• No scope to satisfy social needs
Essentials for building effective teams
• Providing a supporting environment
 • Relevant skills and role clarity
• Focus on super ordinate goals
• Team rewards
Shaping individuals into team players
• Selection
• Training
• Rewards
Team effectiveness:
You write
IMPORTANCE AND DYNAMICS OF GROUPS
Groups
According to J.W Thibut “ a collection of individuals ….the members accept a common task, become
interdependent in their performance, and interact with one another to promote its accomplishment
Group dynamics
• The various interaction that take place among the members of a group comprise group dynamics.
• Three views of group dynamics
– Normative view
( How a grouup is to be organised and how its activities are to be carried out,. Democratic leadership,
participation of the members and cooperation among them)
– Group dynamics consists of a set of techniques
(Role play, Brainstorming, sensitivity training, transactional analysis)
– Internal nature of groups
(How the groups are formed, their structure, process and functioning. How group affects individual
members , other groups and the organisation as a whole.)
Dynamics of group formation
• Propinquity theory
( geographical proximity)

• Balance theory
( Similarity of attitude)

• Exchange theory
(reward – cost analysis)
Various types of groups
• Formal group
• Command group
• Task group
• Informal group
• Interest group
• Friendship group
• Formal group-
• Formed by the organisation to carry out a specific task
• The tasks and responsibilities of a formal group are concerned with achieving organisational goal
• Command group
• Represented in the organisational chart
• Relatively permanent in nature
• Members report to a common superior
• Functional reporting relationship
• Task group
• Temporary nature
• Task specific
• No functional reporting relationshipThe five stage model of group development
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