How handling stress in the manufacturing workforce effects health and productivity.
Bob Papes knows something about stress in manufacturing. His career has included five assignments as the executive brought in to execute turnarounds in failing manufacturing businesses, ranging in size from 150 to 300 employees.
"Manufacturing is stressful enough, but when you are doing a turnaround, that is even more stressful. All of these people's jobs and incomes are riding on the line. If you don't get it done, they are all going to be out of work," says Papes, a consultant and author of "Turnaround" (Cypress, 2002).
See Also: Lean Manufacturing Leadership Best Practices
Manufacturing provides the reward of producing something tangible, notes Ana Weber, the CFO of Binder Metal Products and a life coach and author, but she says it is also a demanding sector. Manufacturers are always facing deadlines, she points out. Frequently they are part of an OEM's supply chain so their customer's success depends on them meeting their particular deadline. There is also a constant demand for quality. "Returns will kill the bottom line," she notes. And manufacturers face a very competitive market, where they have to be careful how they price their products.
Work-related stress, of course, is hardly unique to manufacturing. "In our last survey, 70% of people said work was a significant source of stress for them," says Dr. David Ballard, director of the American Psychological Association's Center for Organizational Excellence.
Stress is a natural reaction, designed to help us cope with short-term threats, Ballard points out. But nowadays, stress tends to be chronic rather than subside after some immediate danger. APA's survey found 41% of adults say they routinely feel stressed out at work. This chronic stress poses a host of problems, from reduced performance to sleeplessness and a variety of physical and mental ailments.
