Stress Is Relative

I've found every person, no matter how busy or not, thinks the level of stress in their life is high. I have a friend who always recites his everyday duties like they were the grand plan of the next world war. He frets over the stress all these things make for his life. I never meet up with him that he doesn't recite the litany of stress events. It used to irritate me to death to sit through one of his tirades. My job entailed situations that at times held human life in balance. My friend was clueless on what stress could be to other people.

As I talked with more and more people in the course of mentoring or teaching, I found virtually everyone thinks their particular life is filled with a maximum amount of stress. All people feel they are a hair's width from breaking. I was able to put aside my "give me a break, you are clueless" attitude towards most of these folks because they are sincere. Most aren't being dramatic or exaggerating, they simply develop the perception of their level of stress for the maximum situations in THEIR LIVES. If their life consists of sleeping at the low end and taking out the trash as their high stress level, taking out the trash becomes their measure of extreme stress. If the low end is sleeping and the high end is fighting terrorist in Iraq, the fighting becomes their high end stress level. Both people feel their high end stress level is maximum. Much like the Parkinson's Law: "Work expands to fill the time available." The law of stress is, "Stress expands to fill our maximum perception level."

There is a point where people are maxing out on stress. As a supervisor, it is necessary to understand if an employee is filling their maximum perception level or if they are actually meeting the top level of their stress handling capabilities.

Gently adding duties to a person who's perception is being fulfilled is necessary to expand the amount of work accomplished and to use this person to their fullest capabilities. Gently adding work allows them to acclimate to their new situation and level out their emotions.

A well balanced stable employee will be able to handle unexpected increases in stress levels. They are the employees who step forward in times of chaos and emergency and perform exemplary.

Other employees love being in their low level of productivity while maintaining their perception of maximum stress. It's not that they can't improve or cope, they simply enjoy the lack of pressure and stimulation additional work responsibilities entail. When you have tried to gently add duties and this employee refuses to move out of this level, it is time for performance documentation and ramifications.

Finally, you may have employees who emotionally find it difficult to move out of their perception of maximum stress. They may be mentally or emotionally immature or fragile. If it is a long term or permanent situation, you will need to decide if the job can continue to be done by someone on this level or does it need more. You may need to decide to move this employee to another, more compatible position. Or, if the business requires more than they can emotionally give to survive, you may need to terminate their employment.

For you, as supervisor, being able to appraise the stress level situations and perceptions of your employees is vital to managing your workforce. Understanding and patience are necessary as is realizing perception is true for these employees. Your job, in addition to evaluating, is to manage and introduce new truths in a way that will compliment the work and the employee.