Rlchard Pettlnger

CULTURAL, SOCIAL, AND ETHICAL CONSTRAINTS

This part of stress management was introduced in Chapter 3. It is important to recognize the extent and prevalence of these constraints. Great stress can be caused, for example, through insufficient attention

48 STRESS MANAGEMENT
to prevailing customs and habits, religious beliefs, and strong social and cultural histories and traditions. This requires the following.
» Acknowledging the range of pressures and priorities that exist in the lives of everyone, including health, family, social, ethical, and religious pressures, as well as those related to work. The outcome of this is understanding rather than interference or imposition.

» Acknowledgement of extreme human concerns. This refers to personal crises: serious illness, death, bereavement and divorce, as well as drink and drug problems. The concern is to ensure that organizations give every possible support to people facing these issues so that a productive and profitable relationship is maintained in the long term. Problems related to drug or alcohol use or addic- tion always fall into the category of legitimate organizational concern. Organizations must set absolute standards of handling and managing these, and give support through rehabilitation where required.

» Confidentiality and integrity in all dealings with staff. This is the cornerstone on which all effective staff relationships are built. Where confidences are not kept or where sensitive personal and occupational information becomes public property, the relation- ship is tainted and often destroyed. Confidentiality also encourages people to be frank, open, and honest themselves, and this leads to a genuine understanding of issues, and a reduction in stress, much more quickly.

» Support for individuals when either they or the workplace identify problems. This is to ensure that people are not penalized as the result of these pressures and strains. This reinforces the integrity of the relationship between the organization and its staff. Again, it reinforces the point that conditions must be created in which individuals are able to confront issues knowing that help and support are available and that they are not to be penalized.

The traditional or adversarial view of this approach to responsibilities and obligations was that it was soft and unproductive, and diverted attention away from production and output. Organizations could not afford to be ‘‘nice’’ to their employees while there was a job to be done.

THE GLOBAL DIMENSION 49
To be effective requires organizations either to adopt the point of view of a corporate citizen or perceived good employer, or to accept that there will be stress-related consequences involving disharmony both with staff and the local environment.

Stress is caused to individuals when they are required to participate in something that they know is either not ethical in absolute terms, or else socially or culturally unacceptable in the particular locality. Where the organizations for which they work are sufficiently confident of their absolute position and feel no need to work in harmony with the locality, individual problems caused in this way are usually insurmountable. The following are examples.

» The world’s largest oil companies have always had stress-related problems among their staff who have to manage the dumping of effluent in West Africa and south-east Asia.

» South African mining companies always had problems retaining European engineering staff who came to work for them during the apartheid era. These problems were only partially addressed by the collapse of apartheid and the creation of the rainbow nation. While wages for indigenous staff working at the coal, diamond, and gold faces have risen substantially, basic conditions of employment, including safety and job security, have not.

More generally, ethical dilemmas cause stress when it is known, believed or perceived that a wrong view of something is being taken for expedient reasons. These feelings are compounded when everyone knows it but will do nothing about it. Such a point of view may be sustainable in the short to medium term so long as nothing overt or visible goes wrong. Once it is brought out into the open, however, support and faith in the particular policy or venture normally collapses.