Stress: A tool on the soul

A new Al study reveals a troubled engineering workforce. What's it mean for you and your life?

Last fall Ron Zarella looked death square in the face. During a routine check-up doctors found the president of General Motors North American Operations had one blocked artery. Four days later he was laying in a hospital bed recovering from a triple bypass.

"Like many people who think they can do anything, I almost waited too long," admits the 50-year-old executive.

Zarella was scared but the experience gave him a level of spiritual clarity concerning work-family balance -- avoid burnout, be conscious of work/life balance and pay attention to stress.

"You don't have to work with any less intensity or passion, just balance it with other things that are important in your life," Zarella says. So these days he runs on his treadmill every morning, cuts back on dinner meetings and spends more time with his family.

"He's picked up the call," says Tim McDonald, manager of corporate health promotions at GM in Detroit. McDonald knows the go-getters. He's intimately familiar with the profile of a tirelessly, diligentsome would say driven person who comes in every day every weekend, sun up to sut down.

"We have that person in abundance here at GM, but not we're trying to show that pehaps there's another model out there," McDonald says. "In the past, executives were rewarded for tireless efforts and lots of overtime at the expense of really bringing any kind of balance to their lives. A big part of leadership is being able to maintain a balance in your life." As a result, he says, there's much more of a corporate effort in making people more aware of their personal health status, and what they can do to improve it.

In the space of a generation, the number of hours Americans work each week has increased by 8% to an average of 47, says Dr. Linda Rosenstock, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health "And 20% of the American workforce is now working 49 hours a week" But as they work harder, she adds, "more people are worried about being laid off." In the last 10 years, the number that fearjob loss has doubled. "And most of them have concerns even if they feel they are performing well or very well on theirjobs," she says.

As part of Al's first Engineering Survey, we queried 1,200 engineers about everything from job-related stress to where they expect to be working in five years, (see p. 74 for detailed bn). The survey, mailed to a random selection of engineers subscribing to the magazine, produced some startling and rather sad results. Almost two-thirds of both OEM and supplier engineers say they felt more stress then they'd like, and about one-third say job-related stress had affected their health. Among the common complaintswere weight gain, high blood pressure, sore shoulders and back, fatigue, headaches and even heart problems.

In the overall survey, our readers say the leading job-related persional issues are stress, compensation ans being over-worked. However, one respondent notes his biggest issue is "working wasted with fools," while another says "too much money is wasted on eective, dead-weight midmanagers."

Two-thirds say they didn't have enough free time, while 83% of suppliers and 89% of OEM engineers say they take work home with them during the week - more than a fifth spend more than five hours a week doing "homework."

One supplier engineer sums it up simply He "takes his troubles home." Another notes, "I spend more time at work than home." Meanwhile, one engineer cryptically jots down - "two divorces," as another flames, "expected uncompenstated' overtime has to stop."

Wild Business

The problem, experts say, is that the stress level is going to get worse.

"This is a wild business," says David Cole, director of the Office for the Study for Automotive rsportation at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "Most people better prepare for the fact that it will get wilder. It's not going to get easier."

It's compounded by the constant drive to get leaner - that is do more, better, faster. That means the stress is spread around and amplified to fewer people. "It's like trying to sprint through a marathon. I don't know how long it can continue," Cole says.

"We're now on call basically 24-hours a day," says Herbert Everss, CEO of Mannesmann VDO in Rochester Hills, Mich. "I'm not making phone calls at 3 o'clock in the morning. But I can tell you I'm checking more phone mail at 5:30 in the morning than I did five years ago."

Those pressures make it more important to delegate authority to match responsibility, select the right people with the competence to do the job and to provide the right type of training and support. For managers, Cole says, that means moving from traditional "Top John, I make all the decisions" manager to that of a motivational coach.

"The pace is fast, but it can be very invigorating," says Sharon Wenzel, vice president of corporate relations at Feudenberg-NOK in Plymouth, Mich. "It's something people either really adjust to well, or they don't." Today most automotive OEMs and suppliers have some sort of wellness program to help employees ad just. The DaimlerChrysler effort in Auburn Hills is typical. Its Wellness Program provides the educational components, including workshops, courses, campaigns, health screening on stress management, nutrition, exercise, blood pressure, cholesterol, weight control and nutrition.

"Here at the Auburn Hills complex about 74% of the employees have participated in our programs," says Brenda Elibri, DaimlerChrysler's program coordinator of the StayWell Program. The highest participation is in cholesterol and blood pressure screening.

There are some other perks, though. Massages are available very workday This employee-paid service includes back, head, neck, shoulder and hand massage. Relaxation techniques, conflict resolution, dealing with change, time management skills and positive attitude-positive results programs are also offered. For people who don't want to participate in programs or classes, there's a library of videos, books and self-help resources.

Even stress classes are less stressFul. Valorie Snyder-Pitts, a senior project manager with the StayWell Program, says over the past 10 years the course on stress management has shifted from formal classroom instruction to self-paced, bite-sized packages. "People don't need more stress," she says. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention notes that employers can make work less stressful by matching workloads to worker's capabilities and resources, define each worker's role clearly and share decision-making.

Prey And Predator

One of the biggest questions in the auto industry now is how do people and the organization adapt to stressful situations like reorganizations, downsizing, mergers and acquisitions? Sometimes it means employees have to redefine who themselves and their aspirations, says Calvin Morrill, a sociology professor at the University of Arizona, who has studied a number of corporations involved in "prey and predator" mergers and acquisitions.

One of the most recent mergers was Lear's purchase of UT Automotive. That was very stressful for a number of people. When told she no longer had a job one woman reacted so strongly that human resources had to tell this usually serene person that they would have her escorted out if she didn't calm down.

"The worst part is going to work and not having anything to do," says another UTA manager who was let go after the acquisition. "You feel like your time has been totally wasted for the past two months. If I'd known one way or the other it would lessen the stress tremendously. But I am relived that the waiting is over."

Those that stayed with the new company face other stressful situations such as consolidation of fiefdoms and becoming highly insular and risk adverting, Morrill says. Some adapt by cutting off old alliances they may have had in the past.

Another cultural adaptation is a rise in ritualistic activities, especially related to meetings. One example is the "meeting duel" - an aggressive give-and-take while presenting information.

Meanwhile, he warns that some internal stress management programs supplied by human resources departments may not help as much as first thought.

"In fact," Morrill says, "ironically sometimes those programs can have the unintended consequence of heightening stress, rather than reducing it. They can highlight what is causing stress, and unfortunately get people to realize more than before all the problems, uncertainties and ambiguities they face."

One suggestion, Morrill says, is to have line executives, not personnel people, explain the coming changes to the ranks. "They need line executives who can actually talk about the changes that are going to come, or have been through these changes in similar corporations."

At the end of the day, though, company leaders absolutely have to demonstrate the behavior, if it's going to take hold. "It has to start somewhere, and really the best place to start is at the top," says GM's McDonald.

Any questions? Ask Ron Zarella.

[Sidebar]

On The Move

Adjusting To A New Country Means Added $is

Overseas stints are almost inevitable in this global industry. They can be exciting, but they also put huge stress on family life. For employers, the stakes are high, too. Unhappy families represent the main cause of failed foreign assingments.

In trying to make transitions abroad smoother, auto suppliers and OEMs are increasing their focus an easing disruptions. Siemens Automotive in Auburn Hills, Mich., for instance, has people scattered around the world, from its parent's headquaters in Germany to Changchun, China.

The stress of moving can be especially hard on the family. While the employee has a built-in social structure, thoes left at home may not be so lucky. Take Hans-Joachim Schmidt, a Siemans marketing manager who recently moved from Engelstrat, Germany, to Auburn Hills, Mich. While he adjusted quite well, his wife had a difficult time. With no local mass transit, ha says, "she felt like she was in prison,"

For that reason, multinational companies are being much more proactive in assisting the entire family when it comes to overseas assingments. At Siemens, a number of company-paid services are provided including cross-cultural training, mail service, housing locators, tax services and even how to find a good local grocery, says Allison Meengs, the company's human resource administrator.

Meanwhile, for Americans going overseas, clearly, learning a new language is among the highest stresses.

Joseph Schuck, director of sales at Siemens spent three years in Reagansburg. Germany. "They will tolerate you if you speak English, but if you speek German they will accept you," he says. But despite eight years of German language training here, he says he was still struggling after a year to speak effectively in technical areas.

So with greater emphasis on language ability and some handholding by the company, these stays abroad won't have to be interminable. They'll be fun.