10 work stressors for those still working

[timo2]

I wonder if those of us on the OMY and planned exit glidepath would be still qualify for studies like this, or is our mere presence at a wo*rk place qualify?

"Workplace stress—such as long hours, job insecurity, and lack of work-life balance—contributes to at least 120,000 deaths each year and accounts for up to $190 billion in health care costs, according to new research by two Stanford professors and a former Stanford doctoral student now at Harvard Business School."

Why Your Workplace Might Be Killing You | Stanford Graduate School of Business

 

[nash031]

Should've included crappy commute.

 

[Big_Hitter]

commutes are self inflicted

 

[6miths]

Man looking at that am I ever glad that I got out. I find it interesting that 'low job control' is the most highly correlated with mortality while people just don't appreciate it. I think this was demonstrated by studies in the UK in which decision-makers had better survival than those who weren't in decision-making positions.

 

[Walt34]

It is yet another indication of how short-sighted people (in general) are. I have read plenty of stories here of people leaving jobs they otherwise liked because of workplace stressors that had little to do with the actual work involved.

This paragraph in the article kind of jumped out at me. There was a thread a while back about employers requiring participation in wellness programs, and that requirement was itself a source of much workplace stress!

They just don't get it.

Smoking cessation programs or incentives to lose weight focus on individual behavior and ignore management practices that create stress and set the context for employee choices. “Lots of research shows that your tendency to overeat, overdrink, and take drugs are affected by your workplace,” Pfeffer says. “When people like their lives, and that includes work life, they will do a better job of taking care of themselves. When they don’t like their lives, they don’t.”

 

[Beldar]

For me, whlie currently w*rking, the main stress so to speak is the anticipation of my impending ER. That will all change at the end of this coming May. At least I can share that in the office (clandestinely of course) with another cohort who is on the exact same exit ramp.

I'm allowing all of the other office and commute stresses just pass me by.

_B

 

[ERhoosier]

I am certainly no fan of excess workplace stress, but I gotta throw the BS flag on this one. The actual paper can be found here-
http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication Files/oph_MS_final_a97f5fc7-0ace-4e5d-b634-8e5516edfd9c.pdf
This paper is a re-analysis of data from many previously published studies. The methodology used, meta analysis, assumes that the data from the included studies are very similar and can thus be logically pooled to yield further conclusions. Individual studies on the effects of stress on health are hard enough to control for confounding factors (like diet, family history, etc.). IMHO these 200+ studies (done in multiple nations!) not not nearly similar enough to be pooled for any logically valid analysis. The 10 somewhat arbitrary "work stressors" the authors present are not precisely defined. They are not used in the same way in each individual study included. How do the stressors "long hours" and "high job demands" differ precisely? Is there not significant overlap between the areas of "job insecurity" and "unemployment"? Or "low job control" and "low organizational justice"? Imprecise data yield invalid conclusions, and these issues are only magnified in poorly done meta analysis.

So bottom line-----PURE RUBBISH, I say.
Or as Mark Twain might say, there are lies, damned lies, and meta-analysis

 

[timo2]

So bottom line-----PURE RUBBISH, I say.
Or as Mark Twain might say, there are lies, damned lies, and meta-analysis

But the charts are pretty!��

 

[Derslickmeister]

I am certainly no fan of excess workplace stress, but I gotta throw the BS flag on this one. The actual paper can be found here-
http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication Files/oph_MS_final_a97f5fc7-0ace-4e5d-b634-8e5516edfd9c.pdf
This paper is a re-analysis of data from many previously published studies. The methodology used, meta analysis, assumes that the data from the included studies are very similar and can thus be logically pooled to yield further conclusions. Individual studies on the effects of stress on health are hard enough to control for confounding factors (like diet, family history, etc.). IMHO these 200+ studies (done in multiple nations!) not not nearly similar enough to be pooled for any logically valid analysis. The 10 somewhat arbitrary "work stressors" the authors present are not precisely defined. They are not used in the same way in each individual study included. How do the stressors "long hours" and "high job demands" differ precisely? Is there not significant overlap between the areas of "job insecurity" and "unemployment"? Or "low job control" and "low organizational justice"? Imprecise data yield invalid conclusions, and these issues are only magnified in poorly done meta analysis.

So bottom line-----PURE RUBBISH, I say.
Or as Mark Twain might say, there are lies, damned lies, and meta-analysis

Thanks for posting this link, I was wondering what the heck "low organizational justice" was...