Tough times for skeleton crews
Understaffing leaves many more employees overworked to the bone
By Joan Axelrod-Contrada, Globe Correspondent, 10/26/03
As Halloween approaches, many offices find themselves with skeleton staffs.
The economic slowdown and related hiring freezes and layoffs have pared staffing to the bone at organizations in Massachusetts and the nation. How bad is the problem? Forty-six percent of senior executives at public companies say their company is understaffed, according to a poll by Christian & Timbers, an executive search firm based in Cleveland.
And it isn't likely that companies will treat workers to an expansion in hiring any time soon. Locally, a majority of Massachusetts CEOs - 53 percent - told the Globe in a survey earlier this year that they expect no change in their hiring plans.
Life isn't easy for members of these lean and mean work forces. One employee is apt to be doing the work of two or three. Forty percent of employees surveyed by the Discovery Group, a Sharon-based consulting firm, say that their workload is unreasonable.
Specialists see clear links between understaffing and employee stress. Employees in understaffed companies who lack a sense of control over their burgeoning workload suffer the most. Many feel caught in a no-win situation: either overworked or unemployed.
Gerald Quinn, a 57-year-old engineering and quality assurance professional, knows what it's like to be one of the ''skeletons.'' Quinn's problems began when his supervisor assigned him five fields of responsibility. Three were highly technical areas entirely new to him.
''It didn't seem like I was being asked as much as told,'' said Quinn, who lives in Holbrook. ''I thought I could take on the challenge.''
Quinn dealt with the additional responsibilities by becoming a meticulous planner. He used software programs to develop detailed task lists and scheduling systems. But, after a while, it became clear that planning alone was not enough. He simply had too much work to do.
A new project at work strained him even more. Quinn spoke to management about the difficulty of this new project. He showed exactly why he needed additional staff and looser deadlines. But it didn't do any good.
''What I had to say fell on deaf ears,'' he said. ''It was just rejected out of hand. There was this belief held by management that almost anyone can do these tasks. I'd go into work and wonder if anyone cared at all.''
When his employer laid him off, he felt a sense of relief. Now he's determined to find a better employer.
''It's helped shape my focus for the future, so I don't get into that kind of situation again,'' he said.
Specialists point to situations like Quinn's as a formula for high employee stress. Larry Elle, director of Success Associates of Brookline, has counseled a number of job seekers who have struggled with being part of a reduced work force.
''The pressures all ratchet up,'' said Elle. ''It comes out in irritability. Understaffing exacerbates the personality differences that are already there.''
Elle advises employees in understaffed organizations to find time for themselves.
''People cut corners with their personal lives,'' he said. ''They cut out their morning exercise program because they're working longer hours. That's not a good idea.''
Often, the stress manifests itself in health problems such as backaches, headaches, high blood pressure, and anxiety. According to the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, healthcare expenditures are nearly 50 percent greater for workers who report high levels of stress.
Dr. Lewis Pepper, an associate professor of health at Boston University's School of Public Health, studied the impact of work-force reductions on the health and well being of more than 6,000 contract workers at five Department of Energy sites. Employees were more likely to suffer sickness and stress if they perceived the layoff process to be unfair and secretive and/or if they ended up overworked in high-demand, low-authority jobs.
''Without a doubt, they're more stressed out,'' Pepper said about workers in a downsized situation. Not surprisingly, employees perceived voluntary staff reductions such as attrition or early retirement as less stressful than forced ones. He also found that union members reported fewer physical and mental health complaints than individuals not in a bargaining unit because they felt more of a sense of control of the process.
Management consultants agree that a sense of control can help workers weather staff reductions. Ideally, bosses audit workloads and take steps to boost employee morale.
''The solution is to reorganize, reprioritize, and refocus the work,'' said Marcie Schorr Hirsch, a principal at Hirsch/Hill Associates, a Belmont management consulting firm.
One West Coast university, for instance, hired Hirsch to pinpoint how its academic support services could be improved without increasing staff.
She found that one person on the staff was maintaining a library of graduate school catalogs that was no longer necessary. Students told her they just surfed the Web for the information.
Other clients, Hirsch said, have implemented reward systems to boost employee morale. For instance, employers might ask employees to come up with a list of ways they'd like to be rewarded: a Friday afternoon off, a chance to go to a professional-development conference.
Organizations can also use temporary workers and interns to help with the overflow. As Hirsch put it: ''Before you can ask people to take on more, you have to help them clear some space off their already full plates.''
Many organizations, however, take nothing off their employees' plates. And in some professions, such as nursing, understaffing isn't just stressful, it can be deadly. A study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the more patients a nurse has to care for, the more likely that serious complications or death will ensue.
Understaffing is also driving many nurses out of the field. A survey of 600 registered nurses in Massachusetts conducted by the Opinion Dynamics Corp. found that 65 percent of RNs currently working in non-bedside conditions would consider returning to a job providing direct patient care in a hospital if a law were passed regulating RN-to-patient ratios. Such a bill is currently pending in the Massachusetts Legislature.
Karen Higgins, an intensive care nurse at Boston Medical Center and president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, has been in the profession for 28 years.
''The last five to eight years have been horrific,'' she said. ''There used to be some wiggle room in the staffing in case a patient got really sick or needed to be moved into the ICU. Now there's no wiggle room.''
Higgins worries about missing subtle changes in one patient because she was tending to someone else. ''The biggest fear is when you come close to making an error,'' she said. ''When you check, it scares the pants off you.''
Nurses are not the only ones taking a stand on understaffing. Union organizer Joe Twarog has long tried to get staffing language incorporated into contracts with employers. But, he said, management always replies that's staffing is ''their prerogative.'' Workers, he said, are frustrated.
''Whether it's widgets or schools, understaffing doesn't do anyone any good,'' said Twarog, field representative for the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers. ''You just get a lousier product or unhappy workers. People can only do so much.''
Employees in understaffed organizations are clearly unhappy. They feel overwhelmed by excessive demands and angry at management for imposing them.
''It's a spooky and scary work environment out there,'' said Elle of Success Associates.
Joan Axelrod-Contrada is a freelance writer and author. She can be reached at axelrodcon@aol.com.
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