Workplace Stress Management Interventions: What Works Best?

Abstract

ployees may feel overwhelmed by the many stress management interventions they have to choose from. Adding to the selection challenge is that interventions often differ tremendously in terms of cost, time, and practicality. Considering the effort and expense involved, it would be helpful to know which intervention approaches are most effective at reducing em ployee stress. Fortunately, new research helps us sort through the many approaches to stress man agement. In their recent study, Katherine Rich ardson and Hannah Rothstein of Baruch College compare the outcomes of a variety of workplace stress management interventions. Specifically, Richardson and Rothstein exam ined the results of 36 experimental studies of stress management interventions from a variety of work environments and synthesized the findings. Their synthesis of results across these studies, known as a meta-analysis, allowed Richardson and Roth stein to compare the efficacy of various workplace stress management interventions. In doing so, they classified interventions as primary, second ary, or tertiary. Primary interventions attempt to alter the source of the workplace stress by making changes such as redesigning jobs to give employees greater flexibility or more decision control. Secondary interventions help employees better recognize and manage stress symptoms as they occur. Examples of secondary interventions include courses that teach skills such meditation or time management. Finally, tertiary interventions are designed to help employees recover from stressful events. For ex ample, an organization may have an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) providing employees access to counseling to help them recover from challenging circumstances. Richardson and Rothstein's meta-analysis in cluded several studies of primary interventions aimed at altering stressful work environments, but most of the studies they examined focused on secondary interventions such as relaxation train ing. None of the studies in this meta-analysis involved tertiary interventions such as EAPs. That said, Richardson and Rothstein were able to sort through the outcomes of stress management interventions across a large number of participants representing diverse occupations and nationali ties. For example, one study included office work ers in the United Kingdom, another looked at hazardous waste workers in the United States, and a third focused on nurses in Taiwan. In gathering these experiments for their anal ysis, Richardson and Rothstein created a diverse list of primary and secondary stress management interventions. These were further divided into