Rlchard Pettlnger

MANAGEMENT AND SUPERVISORY STYLE

The response of organizations, and their managers and supervisors, has crossed the entire range of management styles in the search to resolve stresses and strains caused by the e-dimension. The following are examples.

» Boo.com: the Swedish Internet footwear retailer adopted a fully participative and involved management style. Employees were allo- wed to set their own hours and patterns of work subject only to product and service delivery. They could dress as they pleased. A high quality of working comfort, environment, and life was assured.

36 STRESS MANAGEMENT
Most of the stressors found elsewhere were removed. The company foundered on the lack of viability of the strategic business proposi- tion. There were simply insufficient customers who were prepared to buy their shoes on-line.

» Semco: the Brazilian engineering and white goods manufacturer has developed its e-business as the sales and service point for its existing range of activities, and as a fund of expertise available on a consultancy basis to anyone who would like it. The company is fully participative (see Chapter 7). Like Boo.com, the company allows all staff to set their own hours of work. Staff also set their own salaries, and can choose to work as subcontractors rather than employees if they so wish. All employees have, and are required to take, six weeks’ holiday per annum. The company’s management and organization style has the express purpose of removing all sources of stress and strain from the place of work. Indeed, the primary reason for adopting the approach was because traditional ways of working had brought the company chief executive officer, Ricardo Semler, to what his doctor described as ‘‘the most advanced case of stress I have ever seen in anyone of your age.’’

» A survey published by the UK Institute of Management in February

2000 found that e-mails were a contribution to high levels of stress. Conducted overwhelmingly among line, functional, and divisional managers it found that early optimism about technological advance had brought additional burdens and increased work pressures.

The key to all effective management and supervisory styles is a combi- nation of integrity, respect, openness, visibility, and enthusiasm. This is combined with a full understanding of the activities for which managers are responsible, what is required, how and why, and the environmental pressures in which they are conducted.

From this point of view, the key to effective management of the hi-tech and e-dimensions of stress requires the same basic approach. Understanding the capabilities and constraints of the technology, and the circumstances under which it is to be used, are primary active managerial requirements. Unless this is achieved, effectiveness of usage is always diluted. This results in additional stresses and strains on staff. The consequence is that the e-dimension itself becomes a source of

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dispute, grievance, poor and declining performance, and additional managerial and operational pressures.