Hidden thieves are stealing your employees' vitality andproductivity, and costing your company serious money. Humanresources and benefits managers are responsible for flushing outthe felons and fixing the problems they create. Managers must askimportant questions that will bring the concealed issues to light.Take these, for example.

Do we know all the factors that increase stress in ouremployees? Are human resources and benefits managers searching inthe right places for the actual causes of employee stress? Ifmanagers can reduce a significant portion of the stress suffered inthe workplace today, can HR substantially increase workproductivity and seriously reduce a portion of skyrocketing healthcare costs?

Many studies have looked at the effects of stressful workingconditions on employees, and often come to the same generalconclusions, as stated in an Industrial Accident PreventionAssociation study. “When looking at employee health and well-being,it must be recognized that a worker's general health issubstantially affected by two major factors—what workers bring withthem to the workplace, in terms of heredity, personal resources,health practices, beliefs, attitudes and values; and what theworkplace does to the employees once they are there.”

In recent years, the focus of most of these stress studies hasbeen to find causes of employee stress created in theworkplace and to institute programs and initiatives to helpdiminish or eliminate those to reduce stress effects createdby the workplace. Employee assistance programs, WorkLife,and wellness programs have been shown conclusively to help reducethe stress created in and by the workplace.

However, with the recent advent of wellness programs, there's anincreasing HR focus on the causes of employee stress related toexternal issues employees bring into the workplace. Much of theresearch is showing causes of stress brought into the workplacemight create greater problems than stress actually caused in theworkplace.

Is there some part of this external employee stress that mightbe better understood, leading to a reduction of pressure on anemployee? Will a better understanding of the causes of the stressbrought into the workplace help employers offer or create programsthat can reduce or eliminate the external cause?

Consider what employees bring to work

One stress study concluded health conditions like obesity,alcoholism, drug use and related issues may result in much stressin the workplace. These are practices, behaviors, conditions andsituations occurring outside the workplace that an employee bringsto work with him or her. An unhealthy workplace can bring thesehidden thieves to the surface, creating a vicious cycle: Theemployee brings in external stresses, and a poor work environmentintensifies the pressure. Both the company and the employee arelosers.

HR and benefits managers must ask: Are there some externalfactors brought about by circumstances that are beyond the controlof employees? If so, what are some of these conditions that seemuncontrollable?

Even some health issues affecting an employee's productivity maybe caused by behaviors related to the stresses in their everydaylives. Depression, anger, and even workplace violence can often betraced to factors beyond the workplace that the employee feels tobe outside his or her ability to control. If these externalcircumstances show up more and more frequently at work, the coststo the company mount. Employers may be overlooking the externalstress factors when they spend money to implement employee programsdesigned to reduce obesity, or drug abuse, or smoking, or alcoholabuse, or workplace violence.

Developing programs

If employers want to reduce health care costs by preventing orlessening employee practices and behaviors that endanger theirhealth, managers must focus on programs that uncover and addressthe underlying causes of employee stress. Focusing on strategiesand plans that miss the hidden stressors wastes resources. HR andbenefits managers must factor into the stress equation theconcealed stresses that fuel certain employee issues before theyignite problems in the workplace.

For example, one set of these external circumstances orcircumstances beyond the control of many employees relates to theindividual's financial situation, including cash-flow, credit,debt, identity theft and legal problems.

With today's credit crunch, millions of Americans are literallya lawsuit away from being wiped out of their financial position.Each day, hundreds of thousands of employees across the UnitedStates receive or dodge calls from creditors seeking to collect onpast due debt. Daily, thousands of Americans are dragged into courtto defend themselves from lawsuits by creditors.  Everyday many Americans file lawsuits against others and againstbusinesses. The current recession has highlighted the threat offinancial debt issues and lawsuits, which has never been greaterfor an increasing number of American employees each day.

Add to this the burgeoning home foreclosures that contribute tothe stress weighing heavily on more and more employees. The numberof U.S. homes receiving a foreclosure filing was expected to climbabout 20 percent in 2011, reaching a peak for the housing crisis,as unemployment remains high and banks resume seizures after aslowdown, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

“We will peak in foreclosures and probably bottom out inpricing, and that's what we need to do in order to begin therecovery,” Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac's senior vice president, said inan interview. “But it's probably not going to feel good in theprocess.”

 A record 2.87 million properties got notices ofdefault, auction or repossession in 2010, a 2 percent gain from ayear earlier, the Irvine, Calif.-based data seller said in areport. The number climbed even after a plunge in filings in thelast part of the year—including a 26 percent drop in December—aslenders came under scrutiny for their practices.

This increase in the number of employees and consumers inAmerica being faced with legal problems might cause many to believethat access to lawyers and legal advice is more prevalent thanever.  However, reality indicates that more Americans thanever feel disconnected from the legal system and from accessingneeded legal advice, and most have the view that lawyers areinaccessible and too expensive.

More Americans feel disconnected

All these stress-related credit and debt issues are causingtremendous amounts of downward pressure on the psyche of Americanemployees. In addition to the stress created from a myriad of theirown financial and legal problems, employees are facing the seriousfinancial and legal pressures of their elderly parents. A new AARPstudy suggests “older Americans, employed and unemployed, may neverrecover financially from this latest recession, and more than halfdon't foresee themselves having enough money to live comfortably intheir retirement.”

These are new findings from AARP's latest public policyinstitute report. The report is a collection of data taken from asurvey of more than 5,000 Americans—age 50 and over—who wereemployed, had been employed, or were seeking employment during thethree year recessionary period before they were surveyed onlinelast October.

“Many older Americans have been buffeted by skyrocketing healthcare costs, dwindling home values, shrinking pension and investmentportfolios, and employment struggles,” says John Rother, AARP'sexecutive vice president for policy, strategy and internationalAffairs. “Even if you have a job, this survey demonstrates that youare not immune to the negative effects of the recession.”

Overall, the recession took a toll on older Americans' finances,savings, health care and employment status. Most troubling, nearly30 percent of those surveyed reported they had exhausted all theirsavings during the recession. For those having trouble making endsmeet, more than one in three (36.4 percent) stopped or cut back onsaving for retirement.

Additionally, recent findings from a Gallup-Healthwayswell-being index show older Americans (49.5 percent) had problemstaking care of financial needs and delayed getting medical ordental care or stopped taking medications. Roughly 13 percent ofolder Americans also began collecting Social Security benefits, andtwo-thirds did so earlier than planned. 

“Older Americans have good reason to be worried about the futurebecause they have less time than others to recover from the impactof the last three years,” Rother says. “When older Americans areborrowing against their future or betting against their health,serious challenges lie ahead.”

Whether the workplace becomes the receptacle into which more andmore employee stress is poured, or the workplace becomes a safezone with cost-effective programs that can help manage this stressis a major question today for each human resource and benefitsdepartment in every company in America.

Defining Workplace Stress

“Of course, stress is a factor in every one's life, particularlyduring major events such as marriage, divorce or buying a home,”says Rebecca Maxon, author of the study Stress in the Workplace: ACostly Epidemic. And each of these contributes to higher levels ofstress brought into the workplace by employees.

Most HR departments do not spend large amounts of time analyzingthe effects of an employee's personal legal or financial issues andtheir impact on the workplace. But, is a deeper understanding ofthese needed before we can figure out how to have a healthierworkplace? Should these problems be analyzed before we add a numberof new programs or initiatives that might cost employers millionsof dollars over the next few years, but may not get to the rootcause of some of these problems? We will focus on these questionsin this series. The answers will put light on the hidden stressorsthat are so harmful to employees and hurtful to companies. We willdiscover solutions as we probe questions like these:

Can there be a reasonably simple solution that will eliminate ordiminish a large part of the stress that employees bring into theworkplace? 

Is it possible that some parts of employee stress can actuallybe reduced rather easily? If so, how much will gaining thisunderstanding cost employers? 

Will programs that are put in place to combat this stress reallyresult in a healthier workplace? 

What if there is an easy solution to a large part of thisproblem? 

What if a solution exists that has been overlooked by many HRdepartments? 

What if the solution ends up costing the employer virtuallynothing to implement? 

What if the employer savings are tremendous?

To diminish employee stress and save millions of dollars in theworkplace will require vital HR actions. First, HR mustunderstand the huge impact of the hidden stressors. Second, HR mustrecognize that some parts of this stress-related concern foremployees may have a definitive solution. Third, HR must see how tochoose the right solution. Fourth, HR has to determine that thesolution is relatively inexpensive, and that the solution may beright in front of its eyes, and may not cost the employer anymoney. That discovery and its implementation will reduce the heftycosts businesses are bearing because of the hidden stressors'impact on employees.