TÖÖSTRESS – KIVIAJA REAKTSIOONID KAASAEGSES ORGANISATSIOONIS

Mare Teichmann

Tehnikaülikooli psühholoogiaprofessor

 Mis on tööstress? Kaasajal käsitlakse tööstressina pingeseisundit, mis on põhjustatud erinevate tööl esinevate stressorite ehk stressi põhjustajate poolt. Täpsemalt, tööstress on kogum emotsionaalseid, kognitiivseid, käitumuslikke ja füsioloogilisi reaktsioone, mida kutsuvad esile töö sisu, töökorraldusega seotud ja töökeskoonnas esinevad faktorid.

Stress on kiviajast alates olnud inimesele kaitse- või kohanemisreaktsiooniks, selleks et väliskeskonna stressoritele reageerimise abil tulla mingi olukorraga toime. Stress on reaktsioon, tänu millele inimene kui liik on suutnud kümnetuhande aasta vältel ellu jääda.  

 Kas tööstress on ohtlik? Ei ja jah. Ei ole ohtlik, sest mõõdukas ja optimaalne pingeseisud tagab meie valmisoleku tegutsemiseks ja olukorraga toimetulekuks. Probleem tekib pigem sellest, kuivõrd adekvaatse, situatsioonile ja keskkonnale vastava stressiga toimetuleku strateegia me valime. Läbi aegade on inimene kasutanud kolme stressiga toimetuleku strateegiat:

1. probleemile suunatud stressiga toimetulek, milleks on probleemi lahendamine, planeerimine, keskendumine vaid vajalikule või konkreetse abi otsimine
2. emotsioonidele suunatud toimetulek, milleks on sotsiaalse toetuse otsimine, emotsionaalse toetuse otsimine (sh emaotsioonide väljaelamine) või situatsiooni ümberhindamine   
3. põgenemisstrateegiad, milleks on probleemi eitamine, passiivsus, tegelemine ebaoluliste asjadega, leppimine olukorraga või liialdamine mõnuainetega.

Ükski stressiga toimetuleku strateegia ei ole ei „hea“ ega „halb“, vaid rohkem või vähem adekvaatne või hoopis kõlbmatu konkreetses situatsioonis, konkreetse probleemi lahendamisel.  Tööstressorile liiga tormiline, ülereageerimine või väära stressiga toimetuleku strateegia valimine muudab tööstressi ohtlikuks. Koguni nii ohtlikuks, et stressiga seostatakse mitmeid psühhosomaatilisi haigusi, nagu omandatud diabeet, kardiovaskulaarsed haigused jms. Ohtlikuks muutub tööstress ka selletõttu, et stressis oleva inimese tähelepanu kontsentratsioonivõime langeb ning ta teeb vigu, mis lisaks töö tulemuslikkuse vähenemisele ja praagi suurenemisele võivad viia ka töötraumade ja -õnnetusteni. Pikaajalise stressi tagajärjeks on rahulolematus, enesehinnangu langemine, ärevus ja hirmud, depressiivsed mõtted kuni suitsiidimõteteni välja.

 Mis on tööstressi hind? Euroopa riikides on läbi viidud kolm kaasus-uuringut, mis näitavad, et SKP vähenemine tööstressi tõttu EL liikmesriikides on 2,6 – 3,8%, kulutused 185 – 269 miljardit EUR aastas.

 Kui palju inimesi kannatab stressi all? Euroopa töötajatest 28% leiab, et stress mõjustab nende tervist ja töövõimet (Cooper, 2002). Kord aastas stressis olevate inimeste hulk Eestis on 87%, 14% on pidevas pingelises stressis (Sotsiaal- ja turuuringute firma Saar Poll, 2002). Sotsiaalministeeriumi poolt läbiviidud uuringute alusel (2002) kannatab 38% Eesti elanikest stressi all. Tallinna Tehnikaülikoolis läbiviidud tööstressi uuringud (1992-2002) näitavad, et juhtide ja ka amenike tööstress on pigem suurenenud kui vähenenud viimase viie aasta jooksul. Õpetajad esitavad oma töökeskonda iseloomustades üle 60 tööstressori ja õpilased kirjeldavad koolis üle 44 stressorit.

 Mis põhjustab tööstressi? Stressi põhjustab vilets sobivus inimese ja töö vahel, meie rollikonfliktid tööalaste ja väljaspool tööd täidetavate rollide vahel, meie ebapiisav kontroll oma töö ja elu üle. Stress on põhjustatud paljude stressorite koostoimest (European Commission, 1999).

 Inimene ja töö. Juba töökeskkonnas esinevatest enamleviud stressoritest saaksime pika loetelu: 

 7. töö tulemuse mittetunnustamine, kontrolli puudumine     

8. ebakindlus töö ja ametialase positsiooni suhtes

9. etniline, rassiline, sooline, vanuseline jms ahistamine

10. vägivalla esinemine

11. ebameeldivad või kahjulikud töötingimused

12. ei ole võimalik tööl kasutada oma võimeid ja teadmisi, oskusi

13. võimalus, et pisiviga võib kaasa tuua raskeid tagajärgi

14. ükskõik milline tööstressorite kombinatsioon.

 Kompetentse ja inimese psühholoogiat arvestava juhtimise abil oleks küllaltki lihtne nende tööstressorite mõju vähendada. Euroopa Komisjon lisab tööstressorite hulka ka tüüpilised juhtimisvead: töötajatele ebaselged firma (allüksuse) eesmärgid ja väärtused, ebaselged tööalased rollid, ebaselged prioriteedid, pidevad muutused, tasakaalustamata vastutus ja otsustamine, halvad suhted juhtidega, halvasti määratletud tööülesanded, ebastabiilne ja mittepiisavalt turvaline töökeskkond (European Commission, 1997).

 Rollikonfliktid tööalaste ja väljaspool tööd täidetavate rollide vahel on muutunud nii Euroopa Liidu riikide töötajatel kui ka Eestis tõsiseks töö tulemuslikkust vähendavaks ja stressi põhjustavaks probleemiks. Kaasaja töötaja ees on raske dilemma: täites tööalaseid rolle hästi, kohusetundlikult ja edukalt, jäävad väljaspool tööd täidetavad olulised rollid, näiteks lapsevanema, abikaasa, sõbra roll, unarusse ja vastupidi - pühendudes tööväliste rollide täitmisele, ei ole võimalik hästi täita tööalaseid rolle, olla tööle ja karjäärile pühendunud juht, ettevõtja, ametnik või spetsialist. Järjest enam teadlasi ja uuringuid püüavad leida lahendusi töö ja elu tasakaalustamise probleemile (ENOP Sympsium, 2001, D. E. Guest, 2002).

 Millised on suure tööstressi riskiga elukutsed? Professor C. L.Cooperi (1985)

uuringute tulemustest teame suure tööstressi riskiga elukutseid.

 Paljude elukutsete puhul, näiteks reklaami- ja müügiagendid, sekretärid, õed, õpetajad, sotsiaaltöötajad jt, on lisaks tööl esinevatele stressoritele tööstressi ohuks ka läbipõlemine.

 Mis on läbipõlemine (burn out)? Läbipõlemine tekib töötajatel, kes oma töö-kohustuste täitmisel on sunnitud suhtlema paljude inimestega (kliendid, õpilased, patsiendid jne).

 Millised on läbipõlemise sümptomid? Läbipõlemist jaotatakse nelja staadiumi, mille tunnused endal ja teistel on äratuntavad:

1. staadium: mesinädalad

 3. staadium: kroonilised sümptomid

4. staadium: peaga vastu seina jooksmine

 Kas on meetodeid (teste) töötaja stressi ja tööl esinevate stressorite hindamiseks? Kümme viimast aastat on töötanud 32. riigi teadlased (Collaborative International Study of Managerial Stress, vt interneti kodulehekülg CISMS) ja loonud mitmeid teste, mis on rahvusvaheliselt aktsepteeritud ning mille töökindlust on kontrollitud erinevates riikides. Eesti on osalenud neis teadusuuringutes ja meil on Eestis adapteeritud ja normeeritud tööstressi mõõtmise testide kasutamislitsents. Nendeks testideks on erinevate elukutsete tööstressi indikaatorid (Occupational Stress Indicator – OSI 1), juhi tööstressi test (Occupational Stress Indicator – OSI 2), koolistressi testid: õpetaja tööstressi test, õpilase koolistressi test ning läbipõlemissündroomi (burn out) test.

Mida saame teha tööstressi vähendamiseks? Saame:

1. muuta töö sisu, töökorraldust, töökeskkonda - vähendada tööstressorite hulka ja mõju
2. muuta töötajat – õpetada inimesele stressiga toimetulekut
3. mitte midagi muuta ja tegeleda tööstressi tagajärgedega

ESTONIAN MANAGERS’ WORK AND FAMILY CONFLICT

Mare Teichmann, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia

INTRODUCTION

Work-family conflict is a source of stress that many individuals experience. In resent years, there have been several collective bodies focusing on the importance of the current topic – the European Network of Organizational and Work Psychologists (ENOP, Guest, D., 2002), the Collaborative International Study of Managerial Stress (CISMS2, Polmans, S., et al., 2003). Over the past decade, several theoretical approaches have also been taken to the home and work balance (Grandey, A.A., Cropanzano, R., 1999, Struges, J., et al., 2004). The work – family conflict has been defined as “a form of inter-role conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible is some respect” (Greenhaus, J.H., et al., 1985). According the conception of Gutek and his colleagues (1991), each of the three forms of work-family conflict - the time-based, strain-based and behaviour-based conflict - has two dimensions: a conflict due to work interfering with family (WIF) and the conflict due to family interfering with work (FIW).

 The Estonian society is undergoing a fundamental transformation of industrial structures from a labour-intensive to a knowledge-based society, as well as rapid social modernization in both work and lifestyles. During the past decade, Estonia has made great progress in introducing political, social and economic reforms and integration into the European Union and the NATO. The Estonian GNP has been increased between four to six per cent during the past decade. On the other hand, in an ironic way, Estonia is at the crossroads of shifting paradigms – we live in the transitional period from socialist socio-economic relations to capitalism were the materialistic world has become influential and has taken a more important role in the person’s value system (Kalmus, V., et al., 2004). The Estonian family policy has developed intensively during the past decade. In policy making, the different governments and political parties have clearly agreed on the family supportive policy.

 The previous Estonian managers’ occupational stress studies showed clearly that work and home imbalance was one of the most important stressors for managers (Teichmann, M. et al., 2003, 2004, 2005). On the other hand, we did not find specific occupational stressors for female managers. There was one exception - the managerial role pressure, especially in delicate situations, which gave more pressure to female managers than male managers (Teichmann, M., et al., 2004). The results of the current study presented in this report are part of a larger ongoing research of managerial stress in Estonia. In order to find stress predictors and outcomes we use three methods simultaneously: the WHO Quality of Life instrument (WHOQOL-100, 1995), the Occupational Stress Indicator (Spector, P.E., et al., 2001, Spector, P.E., et al. 2002) and the Work-Family Conflict Scale (Carlson, D.S., et al., 2000). The present paper represents the very first step of this large study. At this stage, we had two aims - the primary aim was to examine the Work-Family Conflict Scale in the Estonian cultural context and the second aim was to analyse the structure of Estonian managers’ work-family conflict.

METHOD

Sample and Participants

 The data were obtained from a sample of Estonian managers (N=179) in 2004 and 2005.  Each participant was given an anonymous questionnaire and asked to return it in a prepaid envelope after filling it in. The return rate of this survey was 100 per cent as the questionnaire was filled in with the assistance of the doctoral students of Tallinn University of Technology.

 The total sample consisted of 100 male (59 per cent) and 69 female (41 per cent) with an average age of 38.4 years (SD = 11.0). The proportion of female and male participants is nearly representative of the proportion of female and male managers in Estonia. 16 participants had a secondary education (9.4 per cent), 16 had graduated from a polytechnic or a college (9.4 per cent), 135 had a higher education (79.4 per cent). 141 participants (83.4 per cent) were employed full-time and 20 (11.8 per cent) held more than one job. 32 participants were single (19.8 per cent), 124 were married or cohabited (76.5 per cent), 117 participants had children (65.4 per cent) in their family.

 Instrument and Measures

 A self-administrated questionnaire survey method was used to collect data. Our questionnaire was a multidimensional Work-Family Conflict Scale (Carlson, D.S., Kacmar, K.M., Williams, L.J., 2000). The authors granted permission to use the method. The total number of items was 18 divided into six factors which contained the time-based work interference with family (time-based WIF), the time-based family interference with work (time-based FIW), the strain-based work interference with family (strain-based WIF), the strain-based family interference with work (strain-based FIW), the behaviour-based work interference with family (behaviour-based WIF) and the behaviour-based family interference with work (behaviour-based FIW). For all items, seven response choices ranged from “agree” to “disagree”. High scores represent disagreement whereas low scores represent agreement.

 The Work-Family Conflict Scale was originally written in English. Four professional psychologists translated the questionnaire into Estonian and four professional translators retranslated the questionnaires into English to assure the quality of translation into Estonian. Words that were improperly translated were retranslated and retested until the Estonian version of the Work-Family Conflict Scale matched the original English version. Additional questions were added about the demographics (age, education, gender, marital status, number of children, employment status, income per family member).

 A statistical analysis was conducted using the SPSS software program. The results of the Work-Family Conflict Scale questionnaire are presented according to the users’ manual. The Cronbach alphas were calculated for reliability analysis. The Pearson’s correlation coefficient was calculated for all parameters in the Work-Family Conflict Scale data sets to identify co-relations of parameters. The significance of correlations was calculated by using two-tailed t-test. The paired t-test was used to assess the differences between the specific parameters.

  RESULTS

 Internal Consistency of Work-Family Conflict Scale Estonian version

 The internal consistency of each of the six dimensions was estimated with coefficient alpha. The reliabilities exceeded the conventional level of acceptance of .70 (Nunnally, J.C., 1978): time-based WIF = .80; time-based FIW = .80; strain-based WIF = .81; strain-based FIW = .82; behaviour-based WIF = .81; behaviour-based FIW = .80.

 According to the Work-Family Conflict Scale, higher average of dimensions mean, that those persons have more pressure. In this point of view, the most important dimensions were the first and the second dimensions, both were the time-based (WIF and FIW) pressures. Table 1 represents descriptive statistics of the six dimensions.

 TABLE 1

Descriptive Statistics of Variables

Fig. 1 and Fig.2 show how the items of the test collected into the factors. All the 18 items correlation coefficients were significant (p < .01). All items in three dimensions show similarly high correlation coefficients: the time-based WIF, the time-based FIW and the behaviour-based FIW. Other three dimensions (the strain-based WIF and FIW, the behaviour-based WIF) were not so clearly constructive. Support to this result gave also the cluster analyse (Fig. 2). Hence, these results suggest that our data map quite well to the model with respect to the factor loading, factor correlations and indicate that the three dimensions (time-based WIF, time-based FIW and behaviour-based FIW) of work-family conflict model are generalizable.                                  

Fig. 2. Variables of Work-Family Conflict Scale - Pearson’s r

Discriminant Validity

The correlations of the six factors found in Table 2 ranged from  .04 to .66.  Only seven correlations were significant (p < .01). The results of the cluster-analysis are presented in Fig.2.

TABLE 2

Correlations among Variables

* p < .01

The single factor, which showed significant correlation with gender, was the strain-based work interference with family (strain-based WIF). The male managers had more pressure for strain-based family interference with work (r = -.19, p < .01). Hence, if the correlations between gender and different items of the questionnaire are analyzed, several important parameters, pressures for male managers can be identified. The male managers claimed: “When I get home from work I am often too frazzled to participate in family activities or responsibilities” (Item 7, r = .16, p < .01). “Due to all the pressures at work, sometimes when I come home I am too stressed to do the things I enjoy” (Item 9, r = .16, p < .01).  “Because I am often stressed from family responsibilities, I have a hard time concentrating on my work” (Item 11, r = .21, p < .01). “The problem-solving behaviours I use in my job are not effective in resolving problems at home” (Item 13, r = .25, p < .01). The female managers had more pressure “Tension and anxiety from my family life often weakens my ability to do my job” (Item 12, r = .2, p < .01).

 The gender of managers did not correlate with any of the Work-Family Conflict Scale dimensions. Time-based family interference with work was influenced by education; higher level of education gave more pressure. The existence of a family and children did not yield evidence of significant correlations with the Work-Family Conflict Scale dimensions. Income per family member influenced three dimensions: the time-based work interference with family (r = .16, p < .01), the time-based family interference with work (r =  .19, p < .01) and the behaviour-based family interference with work (r =  .16, p < .01).

Time-based conflict significantly correlated with the strain-based work interference with family (time-based WIF r = .24 and the time-based FIW r = .21). Similar findings of relationships were found for the behaviour-based family interference with work (time-based WIF r = .26 and time-based family FIW r = .30).

Strain-based conflict mainly correlated with the time-based conflict but did not significantly influence the behaviour-based conflict.

Behaviour-based conflict correlated with the time-based conflict but not with the strain-based conflict.

Work interference with family (WIF) and family interference with work (FIW) forms of conflicts. There was a strong correlation between the time-based WIF and the time-based FIW (r = .66, p < .01) and the behaviour-based FIW (r = .26, p < .01). The strain-based WIF has significant relations with the time-based FIW (r = .21, p < .01) and with the strain-based FIW (r = .41, p < .01). The fifth factor, the behaviour-based WIF was influenced by the behaviour-based FIW (r = .63, p < .01). On the other hand, the time-based FIW showed the correlation between the behaviour-based FIW (r = .3, p < .01) and the time-based WIF (r = .26, p < .01) (Table 2).

DISCUSSION

The multidimensional measure of the concept of the work-family conflict developed by Carlson and her colleagues showed valuable information regarding how the separate work-family conflict dimensions relate to attitudes and behaviours. An 18-item scale with six different dimensions measured the work-family conflict. In the Estonian managers’ sample, the most predictable were the time-based dimensions of work-family conflict.

For many reasons managers were a specific group for research. At first, managers have a great role in a company and their working days are usually longer than those of some other professional groups. Accordingly, they could also be victims of work-family conflict, especially female managers. Our previous occupational stress studies as well as the current study do not support this idea that female managers have more pressure, especially the work-home demands imbalance. On the contrary, the parameters of the Work-Family Conflict Scale test proved to be more significant stressors for male managers than for female managers. The female managers had more pressure “Tension and anxiety from my family life often weakens my ability to do my job” than male managers. And there was no correlation with the managers’ age, marital status and number of children. Income per family member proved to be a more important indicator – the higher the income, the more significant were the time-based dimensions of work-family conflict as well as the behaviour-based family interference with work.

Of course, our research results have to be interpreted in our cultural context. We still have some Soviet values, for example, work is valued more highly than family and it is easier for a woman to find public recognition by pursuing a career. So, Estonian female managers showed a traditional masculine pattern of thinking.

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