Preventing Stress in Organizations

Preventing Stress in Organizations:How to Develop Positive Managersoffers an innovative, evidence-based approach to help managers prevent and reduce workplace stress in their staff. Winner of the 2013 BPS Book Award - Practitioner Text category Provides information on the critical skills managers must develop in order to prevent stress in their staff, and the key ongoing behaviours that promote a healthy work environment Shows practitioners in occupational psychology, HR, Health and Safety and related professions how positive management can be integrated into an organization’s existing practices and processes Serves as an essential guide for managers themselves on how to incorporate proven stress management skills into their everyday interactions with team members Balances rigorous research grounding with real-world vignettes, case studies and exercises

1 Introduction 1 What is Stress? 2 What Stress is Not: Common Misperceptions 3 Common Causes of Stress 4 Work-Related Stress and the Line Manager 5 Summary 9 References 9 2 Why managing stress is important: The business and legal reasons 11 The Business Case 11 The Costs of Work-Related Stress 12 Calculating the Cost of Stress to Your Business 19 What Should We Be Doing to Monitor these Costs? 23 The Legal Case 24 Legal Cases of Work-Related Stress 25 What Should We Be Doing to Comply with Legislation? 28 Summary 29 References 29 3 How to manage work-related stress 31 Prevention 32 Training and Development 35 Support 37 Organizational, Manager and Team, and Individual Level Interventions 38 What Should Our Organization Be Doing? 41 Where Does the Line Manager Fit In? 42 Summary 44 Reference 44 4 Developing a framework to promote positive manager behaviour 45 Rationale: The Need For a Stress Management Approach Focusing on Positive Manager Behaviour 46 Why We Took a Competency-Based Approach 49 The Research Underlying the Positive Manager Behaviour Framework and Approach 51 The Positive Manager Behaviour Framework 55 Evidence to Support a Positive Manager Behaviour Approach 56 Useful Resources 64 References 65 5 Respectful and responsible: Managing emotions and having integrity (management competency 1) 67 Integrity 68 Managing Emotions 75 Considerate Approach 81 Summary 85 References 87 6 Managing and communicating existing and future work (management competency 2) 89 Proactive Work Management 90 Problem Solving 101 Participative/Empowering 106 Summary 119 References 121 7 Managing the individual within the team (management competency 3) 123 Personally Accessible 124 Sociable 132 Empathetic Engagement 137 Summary 144 References 145 8 Reasoning/managing difficult situations (management competency 4) 147 Managing Conflict 148 Use of Organizational Resources 157 Taking Responsibility for Resolving Issues 164 Summary 168 References 169 9 Overcoming barriers to positive manager behaviour 171 Personal Level Barriers 172 Individual Work or Job Level Barriers 176 Team and Relationship Level Barriers 182 Organizational and Wider Level Barriers 186 Reference 189 10 Supporting managers to change their behaviour 191 Behaviour Change Is Possible 192 Theories of Behaviour Change 193 Implementing Behaviour Change Interventions 195 References 207 11 Is stress management just good management? 209 Comparing Positive Manager Behaviour with General Management/Leadership Competency Frameworks 211 Implications for Practice 214 How to Do Your Own Mapping 215 How to Identify Missing Positive Manager Behaviour Elements 224 How to Integrate Missing Positive Manager Behaviour Elements 225 Valuing People Management Skills 227 References 230 12 The way forward 231 Where are You Now? 231 Starting Out – Understanding Positive Manager Behaviour and How It Might Be Useful 233 Deciding How to Use Positive Manager Behaviour 234 Gaining Buy-In 240 Applying Positive Manager Behaviour 244 Sustainable Impact 250 References 253 Appendix 255 Index 261