True Cost of Stress

Men with chronic work stress are nearly twice as likely as women to develop metabolic syndrome (abnormal cholesterol levels, increased blood pressure, elevated insulin levels, excess body fat around the waist), a precursor to coronary disease.

Pete Stoddart, a spokesman for employer services company Ceridian in Bloomington, offers this advice: Don’t ignore stress. “Stress can be the beginning of a lot of other health concerns,” he says. “As an operator, owner, or executive of a company, eventually not addressing that is going to cost you something.” 

Those costs come in a variety of forms. For example, health insurance costs could rise due to more employee trips to the doctor. Stoddart says employees may turn over at a higher rate and productivity can go down if employees aren’t given tools to deal with stress. “We’re in a little bit of a talent war here,” he says. “Employers need to keep their best people, and they can’t afford to lose them to health concerns that can be addressed and managed, or potentially solved.”

Take a Deep Breath

People can modify their behavior to improve some stressful situations. Not surprisingly, one of the most important activities that can help combat stress is exercise. The American Psychological Association says that exercise helps the body practice its response to stress. All of the body’s systems are involved in responding to stress, and this requires each system to communicate more than they usually do. While working out, you are also exercising the body’s communication system.

Resolving situations that create workplace stress can be helped by employee assistance programs, which help employers and employees identify and resolve personal concerns, including family, alcohol, and legal issues that may affect job performance. Training, assessment, and referrals are used to assist in buffering workplace stress.

Ceridian is one of the companies taking the lead in extending services beyond employee assistance programs to what’s called health coaching. Stoddart says that health coaching takes the strength of the employee assistance programs a step further by providing personalized service to help people cope with issues.

A health coach can help an employee learn to work effectively with a difficult coworker or incorporate lifestyle changes to simplify a hectic schedule. Some health coaches have master’s degrees in sociology or psychology, or fitness designations such as certified personal trainer. Ceridian uses special consultants who are trained and certified by Wellcoaches Corporation, a Massachusetts-based company that provides wellness coaches for employee assistance programs.

Dr. Dayna Elfont came to health coaching after her own health issues caused a career detour. Elfont was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in her first year of medical residency; in 2004, she left her practice as a family physician due to complications from MS. Currently, a health and wellness coach, health challenges coach, and chronic illness coach, she is a consultant for Ceridian.

One reason that health coaching works is because an employee has chosen to take on this challenge—and is already motivated to make a change. “We work with participants on lifestyle changes that they want to make and that they define as important to them,” Elfont says. “We help them get from point A to point B and celebrate when they get there.”

But what if an employer doesn’t know if workplace stress exists in the first place? Confidential, voluntary surveys and assessments with specific medical questions are a start. At the top of a typical list of physical stress symptoms are abdominal pain and nausea. “With that survey data, the employer can build a very specific program, such as stress management,” to curb the potential negative consequences, Stoddart says.

Elfont says behavior is another clue to unmanaged stress: “Excessive irritability, trouble getting along with others, turning projects in late, having a hard time concentrating and grasping what they’re supposed to do—things like that could be signs that someone is stress overloaded.”

The key to managing stress is knowing where to turn and that help is available. Educating people about stress and company initiatives to thwart it may lessen the stigma attached to asking for help. Just knowing that confidential help is available can be a stress reliever.