Assignment -

The Joy of Stress

The following scenario describes two individuals who are experiencing work stress. Read the case and answer the questions that follow.

You are the HR manager of a retail store that sells clothes for both men and women of all ages. The store has approximately 75 sales clerks. The store is open from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday. On Sundays, the store is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The store is located in a large metropolitan area.

The first employee who has stopped by your office to complain about feeling stressed out is Jose DeMarco. Jose's job is relatively simple. When clothes arrive at the store, they are sent to Jose in a large bin with wheels. Jose attaches a theft detector device to every article of clothing. The device is the same for all of the clothes. The device is applied rather easily. A piece of the clothing is put in a section of a large machine, Jose pushes a button, and the machine basically "staples" the security device. Once Jose finishes all the clothes in the bin, he gets another bin and starts over. Jose doesn't have to worry about problems with co-workers; he works completely alone. He is not supervised. His only requirement is that he must finish at least one bin per hour, which is somewhat demanding. As mentioned earlier, Jose works alone in a small room. Unfortunately the room doesn't have any windows or air-conditioning. It does get pretty hot in there during the summer months. The air can be quite stale. Further, the room is noisy form the "stapling" machine. Jose claims the job has affected him in numerous ways: high blood pressure, ulcers, frustration, and boredom. Jose is seriously thinking about quitting. You've also noticed from his personnel file that Jose has been absent more often this year than last, he's struggled on several occasions to meet his one bin per hour quota, and he has left work early 3 times already this year.

The second employee who stopped by your office to complain about job stress is Kim Chi. Kim is a sales clerk. Kim enjoys interacting with customers, working the register, maintaining a clean and orderly store area, and setting up displays. Kim has been trained to work in two adjacent areas of the store: women's sportswear and girls' formalwear. Kim often works in one section part of a given day and the other section the other part of the day. There are different supervisors for each section of the store. Further, Kim'' work schedule requires her to work three day shifts per week (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and two night shifts (2 p.m. to 9 p.m.). Kim has a difficult time getting along with the night supervisor of the girls' formalwear. Kim thinks the tension is the result of the supervisor's prejudice towards Asian Americans. Another problem Kim has is that she often feels pulled in different directions. Some days she start work in women's sportswear and the girls' formalwear supervisor tells her to stop what she's doing and work in formalwear. If she does move over to the formalwear, the sportswear supervisor gets upset. If she refuses, the formalwear supervisor gets upset. She often feels stuck-in-the-middle. Another complaint Kim has is that she feels the store is understaffed on the weekends. She often has a huge line of customers waiting at the register. Finally, Kim often feels overworked. For example, last Tuesday she started work at 8 a.m. A note was waiting for her from the supervisor. The note told her to redo all the displays in the sportswear, and rack two bins of new clothes that came in yesterday before she leaves at five. Moreover, she was the only one scheduled to work that day in sportswear, which happened to be the last day of a sales promotion. Needless to say, she was swamped, and completely stressed out by the day's end. Not surprising, her displays were not as impressive as they have been in the past and her supervisor criticized her for them. Kim indicated that something has to change soon. She can't keep up this pace. She leaves work exhausted, often times with a splitting headache. Her morale is getting lower and lower. The other day she yelled at a co-worker, which she has never done before. The week she has been late twice.

Questions:

1. What are the stressors for:

a) Jose?

b) Kim?

2. There are three types of responses to stress: physiological, psychological, and behavioral. Classify each response to stress into one of these categories for:

a) Jose?

b) Kim?

3. What organizational interventions would you recommend to reduce/prevent or help them cope with stress?

a) Jose?

b) Kim?