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Managers Managing Stress at Work: Exploring the experiences of managers managing employee stress in the social housing sector
Parkyn, Matthew
Parkyn, Matthew
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2019-07
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Abstract
This research has explored how seventeen middle managers in the social housing sector
manage employee stress and the reasons they take the approach they do. The research has
been conducted in response to the increased prevalence of workplace stress. While
workplace stress and mental well-being continues to rise up the political and business
agenda; the most recent statistics from national and international organisations identify
that the management of stress in the workplace needs to be improved. Workplace stress is
a global issue for which the related direct and indirect costs are only beginning to be
quantified, although the estimated cost of work-related depression in Europe is €617 billion
per year. Furthermore, there is a trend towards devolving responsibility for managing
workplace stress to individual managers. Despite their increasing responsibilities for
managing stress at work, middle managers often lack the authority, skills and capacity to
make the changes required to prevent workplace stress. Evidence suggests that middle
managers are in a complex and challenging position between their superiors and more
junior staff which can exposes them to role related stressors. The United Kingdom (UK)
social housing sector is a particularly complex and vital one, comprising of a variety of
private, public and charitable enterprises that build, manage and maintain housing stock.
The complexities, political and financial challenges facing the sector expose middle
managers and their staff to an increased risk of work-related stress.
This study adopted a constructivist philosophy, relativist ontology and subjectivist
epistemological position. Semi structured interviews were conducted with seventeen
middle managers working in the social housing sector in an attempt to explore and better
understand how they approach managing work-related stress experienced by the
employees. The findings of this study are that, in contrast to what the extant literature
recommends, participants adopt predominantly reactive approaches to managing employee
stress and deploy mostly secondary and tertiary stress management interventions. The
study also found that the participants tend to focus on managing stress caused by workload,
relationships at work and home-work interface. Furthermore, this study contributes new
insights into how middle managers are managing stress in practice such as, using their
personal experiences of managing their own stress and by observing the behaviours and
practices of other managers. This study also highlights a number of contemporary stressors
in the context of the social housing sector. These contributions provide new practical
insights into how middle managers might more effectively manage stress in the workplace.
The need and focus of this research arose from the researcher’s practice as an occupational
health and safety consultant working with social housing providers across the UK. His work
involves advising housing providers and their middle managers on matters of employee
stress and health. Often this advice is sought when the employee is already unwell and
needs help to recover. This reactive approach to workplace stress is contrary to what UK
health and safety (H&S) law requires and is known to be ineffective in tackling stress at
work. The researcher’s professional experience in the housing sector and the trend in
devolving responsibility for managing stress at work to middle managers, provided the initial
spark for this research.
Citation
Parkyn, M. (2019). Managers Managing Stress at Work: Exploring the experiences of managers managing employee stress in the social housing sector (Doctoral dissertation). University of Chester, UK.
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University of Chester
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Thesis or dissertation
Language
en