Workload pressure, including tight deadlines and too much responsibility and lack of managerial support are main work factors employees say causes work-related stress. The APGAR scoring system is widely recognized as a protocol for rapidly taking stock of a newborn human’s overall medical condition. Reapplied to workplace challenges, the Stress-APGAR acronym recalls five key areas of potential pressure overload. These are:
- A for appearance
- P for performance
- G for growth tension
- A for affect control
- R for relationships
Source: Harvard Business Review, April 26, 2017.
Everyone has a tipping point — influenced by physiological as well as psychological factors — when stress or pressure leads to decreasing performance and, if not addressed, eventually to burnout. The authors hope the Stress-APGAR could become a starting point for courageous conversations on how to create better places to work.
INSIGHTS: It is essential to create work environments where cases of stress imbalance are freely discussed. As Hans Selye, the father of modern stress research once said, “It is not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.”