The big question and the hard statistics
     The million dollar question is, what would it take for an individual or an organization--or an industry's worth of organizations--to elect to take the high road, initiate a practice, cultivate the practice with information from research on stress, and keep that practice strong?  What would the exchange rate have to be?  If the company paid $1,000 a year for an effective stress awareness and management program, how much would they have to be guaranteed in return to make the payout effective?  Twice as much?  Five, ten, a hundred times as much?
     In reading the introductions to a host of works by leading occupational stress researchers and experts, what rings true is that billions of dollars per year are lost to stress related issues.  Sulsky and Smith's WorkStress (2005) reports that "U.S. industry loses approximately 550 million working days annually due to stress related absenteeism" (based on 1999 research).  The same research pointed to "the astronomical costs [industry leaders] believe their organizations have incurred from stress-related absenteeism, turnover, accidents, decreased productivity and medical expenses" (Sulsky and Smith 2005).  From a major survey in 2003, four out of five UK employers surveyed believed that stress had a negative impact on productivity, half believed that stress had an adverse effect on the organization's ability to retain staff; 1,554,256 work days were lost to stress in the U.K., absence cost employers on the level of $2.49 billion dollars, 11% of absences were caused by stress, and 833% believed stress harms productivity (Cranwell-Ward and Abbey, 2005). 
     Steve Jex, one of the eminent researchers on stress in the workplace and author of Stress and Job Performance (1998), points to essentially these same key losses as well as a host of other researchers who have reached the same conclusion:  stress in the workplace can have a tremendously negative impact on the functioning of organizations.  Jex refers to a Northwestern National Live Insurance Company survey that indicated 69% of respondents believed that high stress reduced their job performance (Jex, 1998).  He points to the work of research psychologists Bandura and Brockner in the late 90's to assert: "lower levels of job performance may lead to lower levels of self confidence and self esteem" (Jex, 1998).
     Peter Vagg and Charles Spielberger in a research article from the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology quote Wright and Smye (1996):  "studies [estimate] the overall costs to business and industry of highly stress or dispirited employees "at between $150 billion and $180 billion a year"" (Vagg and Spielberger, 1998).  The question for any organization is, in the last 10 years, what has your organization done to address the stress issue?  "Numerous studies have linked stress to impaired performance in the workplace due to such factors as health problems, absenteeism, turnover, industrial accidents, the use of drugs and alcohol on the job, and counterproductive behaviors such as spreading rumors, doing inferior work on purpose, stealing from employers, purposely damaging property, equipment and products, and various kinds of white collar crimes" (Vagg and Spielberger, 1998).  I would include the costs due to lost performance and greater error from increased drug and alcohol use off the job as a stress coping mechanism.  Vagg and Spielberger refer to the Northwestern survey mentioned above, citing that of those surveyed, 14% indicated stress had caused them to quit or change jobs during the preceding 2 year period (Vagg and Spielberger, 1998). 
     Human error, absenteeism, and work performance tend to be the three largest non-medical impacts researchers note in the literature.  In my experience, I would add that this is an observable tendency.  Add to this the costs of losing prospective clients and customers, the cost of their word of mouth discouragement of other potential clients and customers due to poor handling of stress related issues with the client or customer.  In a peer reviewed research article by D.L. Jones, K.W. McCleary, and L.R. Lepisto, customer complaint behavior was seen as a means of managing stress, and how custommer complaint behavior was supported or encouraged affected a large and spending portion of consumer demographic.  Secondary to this issue is the question of how employees are supported who are the apparent targets of consumer complaints.  The reserach seems to be suggesting that when some consumers complain about service, they are indicating stress and exercising a natural form of stress management.
     Add to this dollar equation the costs in burnout and medical expenses that some organizations foot.  "Health professionals have estimated that 60-90% of all visits to health care professionals are for stress-related disorders, such as headaches, gastrointestinal disease, back pain, and cardiovascular disease" (Sulsky and Smith, 2005).  "Stress related disorders cost U.S. industry in excess of $150 billion a year"" (Sulsky and Smith, 2005).  "[Stress is] implicated in many serious health-related behaviors, such as smoking and substance abuse" (Sulsky and Smith, 2005).  "88% of [managers in one survey reported] physical and psychological reactions to workplace pressure with insomnia, headaches, depression, weight changes, and panic attacks being the top complaints in order of frequency (Maki, Moore, and Grunberg, 2005).
     "Stress related conditions were identified as one of the most important health issues of the 1990's by the U.S. National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health...The Health and Safety Executive [U.K. 2000] reported that, from a random sample of U.K.approximately 20% experienced high or extremely high levels of stress at work (Gyllenstein, Palmer and Farrants, 2005).  "Among those who stated [in the Northwestern National Life Insurance survey] that their jobs were highly stressful, more than twice as many reported experiencing burnout (50% vs. 19%), as compared with less stressed employees.  Highly stressed employees also reported suffering much more from stress-related medical problems (55% vs. 21%)" (Vagg and Spielberger, 1998). 
     Increasingly, litigation has entered into the cost equation for organizations as well.  While lawsuits based on stress in the workplace have been difficult cases to win in the past, there is precedence for environmental stressors that have resulted in carpal tunnel syndrome, for workplace bullying and passive aggression, and for wrongful termination when measures were not sufficiently taken to protect workers from burnout or undue stress.  Employers who terminate employees based on disciplinary issues are increasingly at risk in an era where stress is a confirmable factor in the workplace, especially when organizations can take proactive measures with affordable impact. 


Sources

Cranwell-Ward, Jane, and Abbey, Alyssa; Organizational Stress; New York:  Palgrave MacMillan, 2005.

Gyllenstein, Kristina, Palmer, Stephen, Farrants, Jacqui; "Perceptions of stress and stress interventions in finance organizations:  overcoming resistance towards counseling"; Counseling Psychology Quarterly, 18(1) March 2005, p. 19-29.

Jex, Steve; Stress and Job Performance; Thousand Oaks:  Sage Publications, Inc., 1998.

Maki, Nancy, Moore, Sarah, Grunberg, Leon, Greenberg, Edward; "The responses of male and female managers to workplace stress and downsizing"; North American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2005; p. 295-312.

Sulsky, Lorne, and Smith, Carla; WorkStress; Belmont:  Thomson Wadsworth, 2005.

Vagg, Peter R. and Spielberger, Charles D.; "Occupational stress:  measuring job pressure and organizational support in the workplace"; Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1998; p. 294-305.