contents under pressure

For the average distribution center worker, it's another day, another hefty dose of job stress. You walk in the door and your brain shifts right into overload—trailers have arrived early and the unloading's already behind schedule. Or you're assailed by a supervisor reminding you that pick times will be closely monitored today because of an unusually tight schedule. Or the trucks are late and there's nothing to do but wait for the inevitable crunch. Or you're ordered to cover for someone who's out with the flu but can't get anyone to tell you precisely what you're supposed to do.

And even if you did know exactly what you were supposed to be doing, all too often you can't count on getting the tools and help you need. Two of the four lift trucks are out of commission. Cramped aisles make it impossible to move inventory and equipment around. Vacancies and absenteeism have left the facility pitifully understaffed. You're feeling the strain—both physical and emotional—and nobody seems to care.

No wonder between 20 and 75 percent of all warehouse workers leave their jobs within one year of their hire date. Though some learn to tolerate the stress, huge numbers succumb to the work fatigue. Those burned-out employees eventually respond in one of two ways: they try to wrest more control over the situation or they leave (think fight or flight).

Filling the vacancies can be both difficult and expensive—the cost of replacing a single employee is estimated to be in the thousands of dollars. Alarmed by the high turn over, distribution center managers from Klickitat to Kittery are looking for ways to fight stress and hold on to their workers.

But to fight stress, you have to understand what causes it and who's most affected. For that, we went right to the source, surveying 667 workers in seven distribution centers (see sidebar for a look at the respondent pool). Specifically, we wanted to know the following: How bad is the stress and burnout? Do stress and burnout levels vary based upon employee job tenure, overall job experience in the industry, work shift (early/day/late), or job status (full-time, part-time or temporary)? And most important of all, what can be done about it?

As bad as it gets?
To get an idea of how much stress DC workers are under, we asked survey participants seven questions related to pressures of the workplace— how often they had "been upset because of something that happened at work," for example, or how often they "found that they could not cope with all of the things they had to do." Stress levels were measured on a scale of 1 to 7—1 = never and 7 = every day. Researchers then averaged the numeric scores for each employee's answers to compute an overall stress score for that individual.

We conducted the "burnout" survey in much the same way. Participating employees were asked nine questions such as how often they "felt used up at the end of the workday," "failed to make an effective contribution to the organization," and "felt emotionally drained from [their] work." Responses were again scaled from 1 to 7, with 1 = never and 7 = every day. The respondents' answers to the nine questions were summed to create an overall burnout score for each employee.

Overall, respondents reported feeling a moderate level of stress— 3.53 on a scale of 1 to 7, indicating that they typically experienced stress a few times per month.Most of the stress appeared to derive from what we termed demand related factors—inability to control their immediate work environment or to manage unexpected events. Workers seemed to take problems caused by a lack of resources much more in stride.

The overall burnout score didn't lag too far behind. Workers reported experiencing burnout symptoms on a regular basis (3.43 overall on a scale of 1 to 7), as well. Burnout among distribution center employees most often takes the form of emotional exhaustion—the statement "I'm emotionally drained by my work" resonated loudest among workers. Survey respondents also reported that they felt inadequate or detached on a pretty regular basis.

Feeling the burn(out)
But not every stressed worker falls victim to burnout. Some segments of the workforce continue to function normally even as their colleagues succumb to the stress. What accounts for the differences? Does job tenure, for example, affect a worker's susceptibility? How about work experience, work shift (daytime or nighttime) or job status (full time, part time or temporary)? In hopes of identifying factors that increase the risk,the research team conducted four separate analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests. What follows is a summary of the sometimes surprising results:

• Job tenure. Researchers divided the respondents into three groups based on tenure in the current job—less than two years, two to five years, and more than five years. Though you might ex pect the trend line to move steadily in one direction (say, up), the results actually showed that job stress decreased significantly after two years of employment—from 4.44 for those who had been on the job less than two years to 2.78 for those with two to five years' tenure. However, as DC employees pass their five-year anniversary with the same employer, job stress levels climb again.
  
  By contrast, burnout steadily decreased overtime. Workers with less than two years' tenure reported significantly higher levels of burnout symptoms (4.64) than those with two to five years on the job (3.66) or those with more than five years (2.21).
  
  Why does the pattern change so abruptly at the five-year mark, with burnout levels continuing to drop while stress re-escalates? Stress may rise at that point because of added responsibility or deteriorating relationships with co-workers. As for declining burnout levels, it may be that employees develop coping mechanisms over time—they learn to handle stress or they simply decide to live with it. It's also possible that as time passes, these employees begin to feel "institutionalized"—that is, they begin to feel that they're an integral part of the organization (or the work group) and spend less time worrying about being fired, reprimanded or demoted. But it's more likely that the burnout drops over time simply because many quit. The problem (stress) is still there, but burnout is lower because some of the employees have gone.
• Work experience. Does overall distribution center work experience (all experience—not just time on the current job) influence job stress and/or burnout? To find out, researchers divided respondents into three groups based on their total years of distribution center experience: workers with less than five years' experience, with five to 10 years of experience, and with over 10 years' experience, and compared their total stress and burnout scores.
  
  What they found was that up to the 10-year mark, job stress and burnout levels remained relatively static. However, after the 10th year of experience, burnout levels declined significantly (to 3.05 from 3.78), while job stress levels rose significantly (to 4.02 from 3.33). The increase in stress later in the career may be caused by physical strain related to aging, increased stress related to increased responsibility or the inability to cope with changes in the work environment. The decline in burnout later in the career may indicate increased ability to manage job stress or simply that some burned-out employees leave.
• Work shift. Are some job shifts more stressful than others? It looks that way. Though workers assigned to the early shift (basically the traditional 8-to-5 workday) and the overnight shift (any shift that begins after 5 p.m. and lasts until after midnight) reported moderate levels of both job stress and burnout, employees working the mid-shift (any shift that begins in the afternoon and lasts late into the evening) reported significantly higher levels of job stress and burnout.
  
  There are a number of possible reasons. Traditional shift workers can usually count on their work day following a ro utine—when they arrive in the morning, they know what tasks they can expect —picking, packing, loading or unloading. Stress arising from unexpected events tends to be minimal. Early-shift workers can also expect to work under the guidance of a full supervisory staff and with a full complement of co-workers for help. Overnight shift workers also reported relatively low stress levels—albeit for very different reasons. DCs often hire these workers to create work teams that come in very late or very early to perform a specialized task. The uniqueness of the task, smaller workforce and unusual hours can create camaraderie among workers that helps to reduce stress.
  
  Mid-shift workers, by contrast, often come in while the early-shift workers are still around but stay long after they've left. Fewer managerial personnel are available for guidance. This crew often experiences volatility in workrelated demand—they may be assigned to complete whatever tasks were not finished by the early shift in addition to their regular responsibilities. There generally are fewer midshift workers than early-shift workers. As a result, they're much more likely to be randomly assigned to unfamiliar tasks or given responsibilities that they consider someone else's jo b. These factors, in addition to the added st ress o f working hours that are generally reserved for life outside the workplace,may explain the peaks in both job stress and burnout relative to early and overnight shifts.
• Employment status. Is it more stressful to be a full-time worker than a part-time employee? Or a temporary/summer worker than either of the others? Though we found only minor differences in job stress and burnout between the full-time and part-time distribution center workers, temporary/summer workers reported much higher stress levels than the other two groups. Temps are often given a variety of unrelated short-term assign m ents to cover immediate demand or replace workers who are on leave. The wide variety of tasks performed and/or the uncertainty of expectations related to daily tasks may create stress.
  
  Though stressed, temporary/summer workers are much less likely to experience burnout than regular full- or parttime employees. That's not surprising. They're aware that their positions, and therefore their stresses, aren't permanent. They may be miserable, but they know there's an end in sight.

Redress for stress
Understanding the reasons behind workplace stress is one thing; doing something about it is another. Generally the solutions involve some combination of psychological rewards, training, raising self esteem and more sensitive management.

What can managers do? Our study didn't address this question, but based upon the current research and our professional work experience, we believe workplace stress can be greatly reduced if managers provide the following:

• More training. Improved skills can lead to a greater sense of accomplishment. Plus, the right type of training will better prepare workers to handle unexpected events.
• More control over the work environment. Delegating responsibility to workers cuts down on their stress. Empower workers to develop best practices and/or change their job designs.
• Clear and precise definitions of job responsibilities. Identify the scope of the job and the expectations. Specify exactly what performance measures will be used.
• Relief from boredom. You can ease the tedium by instituting cross-training, varying their tasks and responsibilities or instituting periodic job rotations.
• Recognition of individual accomplishments. Don't stint on feedback and praise. And let your stars shine: Post weekly performance measures in the break room, including employee names, goals and achieved performance.
• A sense of place. Workers want to know how their efforts contribute to the larger goals. Emphasize that work is a team effort. Encourage team meetings and mentoring.
• R&R. Organize recreational activities outside of work—a softball team or a bowling league. Not everybody's an athlete, of course. But then again, laughter can be a great stress reliever.