Directorate of distance education master of business administration

Stages of Reaction to Stressors
 
Stages of coping refer to primary appraisal and secondary 
appraisal. Primary appraisal involves the determination, based on one’s 
knowledge of the stressor, whether we are potentially threatened or are 
in jeopardy. Assessment of resources for dealing with the stressors is 
called secondary appraisal. Hans Selye is considered the father of Stress 
Management Studies. He specified the General Adaptation Syndrome 

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(GAS) to depict the stages undergone by people facing stressful situations.  
GAS comprises of three phases, the first being alarm, a state of heightened 
alertness and bodily arousal, followed by Resistance, a stage of putting 
up with and opposing the stress-causing force. The third phase would be 
one of exhaustion, when the person begins to give up the struggle against 
the stressor and submits meekly to the reality.
Major sources of organizational stress include confusing 
directions and conflicting demands from two or more people.  The 
other sources are too much work or too little work, career insecurity and 
lack of opportunities, irritating habits of co-workers, conflict of work 
with responsibilities of personal lives, impersonal and dehumanizing 
effect of use of high technology, extreme conflicts and so on. Stress in 
modern organizations occurs due to the demands of meeting targets and 
deadlines at work. For many employees, change creates stress. A dynamic 
environment characterized by takeovers, mergers, restructurings, forced 
retirements and mass retrenchments has created a large number of 
employees who are stressed out. 
For example, General Electric, under the leadership and guidance 
of its CEO Jack Welch introduced the formula called 20:70:10 wherein the 
whole workforce was divided into three categories namely the top 20% of 
best performers, the middle 70% of average performers and the bottom 
10% of poor performers.  While the first two groups were rewarded in two 
different ways, people in the third group were earmarked for summary 
dismissal. As a consequence, employees wanting to save their jobs at each 
year were supposed to have performed not only better than last years and 
better than the targets, but also better than at least 10% of the people.  
Since the process of eliminating continued every year, the performance 
standards kept rising each year for all the employees. This resulted in 
a highly stressful working situation for employees of the organization, 
quite a few among them succumbed to stress related disorders. 
Quelling negative stress and maintaining functional stress, 
involves eliminating or modifying the sources of stress, developing 
optimism and hope, taking good care of one’s body, using relaxation 
techniques, talking out of one’s problems with others, rewarding oneself 
for a job done well and leading a complete, satisfying personal and 
social life. Job stress stems from any situation in the workplace which a 

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person perceives to be fearful. Office politics is a fear-producing factor 
to many employees. To defend oneself against highly stress producing, 
devious and unethical office politics, an employee must take steps like 
documenting one’s side of the story, confronting the devious persons 
and maintaining a consistent record of high levels of integrity and good 
performance outcomes.  Employers must provide support and nurturing 
and also strive to create an environment that is planned, efficient and 
orderly. Communication to employees should be timely, accurate and 
appropriate. 
 
Stress could be sometimes anticipatory in which an arousal is 
stimulated by an expected stressor.  This is often caused by inadequate 
preparation or pessimistic feelings by the victims of stress. Current stress 
is arousal that takes place during an experience. Stress could also be 
residual at times, in which the arousal continues to remain even long 
after the stressful event has passed. Inability to overcome the trauma of 
an event is the cause of residual stress. Lack of support during and first 
aid immediately after stressors could be the causes of residual effects on 
people. Stress could be reactive to specific situations or endogenous or 
in born in certain people who are more vulnerable to stressors.
 
Handling persons with high levels of stress is a challenge for every 
Human Resource professional. Over the years, management practitioners 
have evolved the following formula for handling persons with stress:
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ӹ Being attentive and use effective listening as a step towards 
building rapport with the person who expresses symptoms of 
stress. 
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ӹ Allow the affected person time to ventilate his or her feelings 
freely.
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ӹ Acknowledge even small degree of truth in what the person is 
saying.
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ӹ Demonstrate your understanding and empathy towards the 
victims. 
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ӹ Encourage their participation in caring, supportive relationships
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ӹ Help the people to interpret difficulty and change as a positive 
challenge or opportunity rather than a life-threatening tragedy. 

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ӹ Build confidence in their abilities to master difficulties and 
challenges that might come along. 
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ӹ Strengthen their beliefs in universal and everlasting values and 
ideals. 
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ӹ Re-create their perception of being in control by making them 
realize their ability to influence the events around them and / or 
their reactions to them. 
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ӹ Enable them to respond constructively and objectively to their 
life’s events.
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ӹ Help persons with stress to generate innovative and situation-
specific solutions to difficulties and dilemmas.
Rational thinking, realistic self-talk, re-examining assumptions 
and beliefs being held for a long time, praying, solitude and contemplation, 
being in nature, reading and writing, hypnosis, bio feedback and auto 
suggestion, music, yoga, hydrotherapy, massage and humor are some of 
the need-based stress management strategies advocated by organizers of 
workplace wellness programs all over the world, to recuperate employees 
from their anxiety producing work situations.  Engaging in voluntary, 
intrinsically satisfying and socially sanctioned leisure experiences and 
recreational activities during one’s free time is found to be a sound 
antidote to stress, as it rejuvenates a person and compensates for the 
energies lost at work. Whatever be the nature of the programs conducted 
to help people against stress, they are aimed at goals like low illness risk, 
maximizing energy for daily living, enjoyment of daily lives, continuous 
development of one’s abilities and commitment and responsibility 
towards the common good.