Ebook A business case for the Management Standards for stress
The Health and Safety Executive’s Management Standards advocate a preventive, population based approach to reducing work-related stress. This approach involves targeting six main working conditions (i.e., demands, control, support, relationships, role, and change) and specifying management practices that will help to ensure that these potential sources of stress do not actually act as stressors for employees. In this way, it is hoped that the Management Standards will promote better mental health (or less stress) and business, or productivity outcomes (defined herein as decreased absenteeism, lower turnover, and better performance). Whilst sufficient evidence suggests that successfully managing these six working conditions will improve mental health, it is far less clear as to whether business benefits may accrue from such effective management. The aim of this report is to review the extant literature, in order to determine the extent to which effectively managing some or all of the six potential stressors is associated with beneficial business outcomes.
To fulfil this aim, we conducted a number of meta-analyses on quantitative studies that examined the effect that the six working conditions have on business outcomes. In addition, we have summarised and discussed this research literature, in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of it. Table 1 (overleaf) summarises the major findings.
The most convincing evidence for a business case was seen for control. Nineteen longitudinal studies or laboratory experiments consistently showed that higher levels of this working condition led to better business outcomes. Impressively, eight of these studies showed a (very desirable) small to moderate statistical impact on objectively measured performance.
There is clear evidence that higher levels of support lead to better business outcomes, particularly for objectively measured performance. However, the number of studies that have examined such relationships, and the consistency of their findings, make the business case for support, whilst good, not as strong as it is for control.
Relationship problems appear to have their greatest effect by reducing team performance and increasing withdrawal behaviours, which are productivity related outcomes including absenteeism, tardiness, neglecting work tasks, and producing poor quality work. In contrast, role problems seem to have their greatest impact by increasing turnover intention and undermining how people perceive they perform their job, but not on how other people perceive they do their job; nor do such problems appear to impact upon people’s performance, as measured by objective outcomes.
There is a small, but promising, evidence base that suggests that detailed and accurate communication about organisational change processes reduce turnover intention. There is also one study that links such detailed and accurate communication to better performance ratings and lower absence levels.
The business case appears weakest for demands. In particular, high demands only have meaningful and consistent deleterious effects on business outcomes in laboratory experiments. In actual work organisations, high demands are not a good predictor of any business outcome, except when they are accompanied by lower levels of control.
Four out of five rigorous studies clearly demonstrated that increasing job control paid off considerably in terms of improving absenteeism, turnover, or performance (objectively measured and as rated by others). In many ways, these findings from the intervention studies speak more directly to the potential business benefits that may accrue from an organisation implementing the Management Standards. They show that targeted low-impact interventions, which essentially applied the Management Standard of control, have significant, and very meaningful, effects on business outcomes.
Finally, four studies demonstrated that businesses can make significant financial savings, and reduce absence rates, by increasing levels of job control. More longitudinal studies are needed to examine relationships between the six working conditions and business outcomes; however, for the purposes of validating and promoting the Management Standards, what would be more useful are quasi-experimental outcome studies that investigate the effects that the Management Standards approach has on business outcomes (as well as, of course, on mental health and attitudinal outcomes).
CONTENTS
Executive Summary
1. Background And Research Objectives
2. Method
- 2.1 Conducting The Literature Search
2.2 Choosing The Unit Of Analysis And Obtaining The Effect Size Index
2.3 Statistically Analysing The Effect Size Distribution
3. Results
- 3.1 Control
3.2 Support
3.3 Relationships
3.4 Role
3.5 Demands
3.6 Change
4. Discussion
5. Implications And Recommendations
- 5.1 The Need For More Quasi-Experimental Outcome Studies
5.2 The Management Standards Approach May Lead Organisations To
Reduce Several Stressors At Once: Will This Work And, If So, How?
5.3 What Type Of Research Programme Is Now Needed?
6. References
7. Appendix 1: Exclusion Criteria
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