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Automotive Industry

Stress: A Toll On The Soul

Automotive Industries, June, 1999 by Norman Martin

A new AI study reveals a troubled engineering workforce. What's it mean for you and your life?

Last fall Ron Zarella looked death square in the face. During a routine check-up doctors found the president of General Motors North American Operations had one blocked artery. Four days later he was laying in a hospital bed recovering from a triple bypass.

"Like many people who think they can do anything, I almost waited too long," admits the 50-year-old executive.

Zarella was scared but the experience gave him a level of spiritual clarity concerning work-family balance -- avoid burnout, be conscious of work/life balance and pay attention to stress.

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"You don't have to work with any less intensity or passion, just balance it with other things that are important in your life," Zarella says. So these days he runs on his treadmill every morning, cuts back on dinner meetings and spends more time with his family.

"He's picked up the call," says Tim McDonald, manager of corporate health promotions at GM in Detroit. McDonald knows the go-getters. He's intimately familiar with the profile of a tirelessly, diligent -- some would say driven person who comes in every day -- every weekend, sun up to down.

"We have that person in abundance here at GM, but now we're trying to show that perhaps there's another model out there," McDonald says. "In the past, executives were rewarded for tireless efforts and lots of overtime at the expense of really bringing any kind of balance to their lives. A big part of leadership is being able to maintain a balance in your life." As a result, he says, there's much more of a corporate effort in making people more aware of their personal health status, and what they can do to improve it.

In the space of a generation, the number of hours Americans work each week has increased by 8% to an average of 47, says Dr. Linda Rosenstock, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. "And 20% of the American workforce is now working 49 hours a week" But as they work harder, she adds, "more people are worried about being laid off." In the last 10 years, the number that fear job loss has doubled. "And most of them have concerns even if they feel they are performing well or very well on their jobs," she says.

As part of AI's first Engineering Survey, we queried 1,200 engineers about everything from job-related stress to where they expect to be working in five years, (see p. 74 for detailed breakdown). The survey, mailed to a random selection of engineers subscribing to the magazine, produced some startling and rather sad results. Almost two-thirds of both OEM and supplier engineers say they felt more stress then they'd like, and about one-third say job-related stress had affected their health. Among the common complaints were weight gain, high blood pressure, sore shoulders and back, fatigue, headaches and even heart problems.

In the overall survey, our readers say the leading job-related personal issues are stress, compensation and being over-worked. However, one respondent notes his biggest issue is "working with fools," while another says "too much money is wasted on ineffective, dead-weight middle managers."

Two-thirds say they didn't have enough free time, while 83% of suppliers and 89% of OEM engineers say they take work home with them during the week -- more than a fifth spend more than five hours a week doing "homework."

One supplier engineer sums it up simply. He "takes his troubles home." Another notes, "I spend more time at work than home." Meanwhile, one engineer cryptically jots down --"two divorces," as another flames, "expected `uncompenstated' overtime has to stop."

Wild Business

The problem, experts say, is that the stress level is going to get worse.

"This is a wild business," says David Cole, director of the Office for the Study for Automotive Transportation at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "Most people better prepare for the fact that it will get wilder. It's not going to get easier."

It's compounded by the constant drive to get leaner -- that is do more, better, faster. That means the stress is spread around and amplified to fewer people. "It's like trying to sprint through a marathon. I don't know how long it can continue," Cole says.

"We're now on-call basically 24-hours a day," says Herbert Everss, CEO of Mannesmann VDO in Rochester Hills, Mich. "I'm not making phone calls at 3 o'clock in the morning. But I can tell you I'm checking more phone mail at 5:30 in the morning than I did five years ago."

Those pressures make it more important to delegate authority to match responsibility, select the right people with the competence to do the job and to provide the right type of training and support. For managers, Cole says, that means moving from traditional "Top John, I make all the decisions" manager to that of a motivational coach.

"The pace is fast, but it can be very invigorating," says Sharon Wenzel, vice president of corporate relations at Freudenberg-NOK in Plymouth, Mich. "It's something people either really adjust to well, or they don't." Today most automotive OEMs and suppliers have some sort of wellness program to help employees adjust. The DalmlerChrysler effort in Auburn Hills is typical. Its Wellness Program provides the educational components, including workshops, courses, campaigns, health screening on stress management, nutrition, exercise, blood pressure, cholesterol, weight control and nutrition.

Automotive Industry

Stress: A Toll On The Soul

Automotive Industries, June, 1999 by Norman Martin

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