IBM Case Study: Work Stressors, Strategies and Cultural Concerns

This case study examines stress management within IBM, focusing on identifying work stressors and proposing feasible stress management strategies, considering cultural and social concerns. The study highlights key stressors such as workload, unrealistic demands, organizational changes, career ambiguity, lack of recognition, poor interpersonal relations, and harassment. Proposed strategies include tracking stressors, establishing boundaries, and leveraging flexible work arrangements. However, the effectiveness of these strategies is analyzed in the context of cultural differences, interpersonal conflicts, and social issues such as harassment and low motivation. The case study concludes by emphasizing the importance of addressing these cultural and social concerns to enhance the success of stress management interventions within a global organization like IBM. The assignment also references multiple academic sources to support its findings.

Running head: IBM CASE STUDY
Stress Management in IBM
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Question 2
Identification of Possible Work stressors and Suggestion of Feasible Stress Management
Strategies for the Employees of IBM by looking at Cultural and Social Concerns limiting
the Effectiveness of the Strategies
The organizational management of IBM has focused on work life integration for all
employees, so that every staff is able to provide maximum productivity without any issue or
complexity (Powell and Enright, 2015). It is an approach, which creates more synergies
within all the areas of work, life and their personal wellbeing. The approach also focuses on
the pivots and not only on the subsequent boundaries within various areas of life. Since, IBM
is one of the most popular and significant software companies in the world, it is extremely
vital to ensure that the employees are stress free and they are working in a work friendly
environment. It is needed to identify the possible work stressors in the company for the
employees in IBM, so that it becomes easier for the company to reduce work stress to a high
level. The major work stressors in IBM are as follows:
i) Workload: The heavier workloads and long working hours could easily make for
the stressed and over tired staff. Since the organizational growth of IBM is huge, it is evident
that the work pressure is high for all employees (Sharma and Rush, 2014). As a result, it is
needed to communicate with the management regarding responsibilities, conflicting deadline
and overload.
ii) Unrealistic Demands: As IBM is doing their business globally, it often occurs that
the employees have to face unrealistic demands from both organizational management and
customers. These demands can create massive frustration and anger and it could even
increaser their work stress.

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iii) Organizational Changes: There could be a lot of changes in the organizational
growth and development, which could not be readily accepted by the employees in IBM and
hence stress could be increased to a high level (Tetrick and Winslow, 2015). Moreover, since
such changes are avoidable, the employees might not understand the requirement of these
changes in the business and they might take up massive stress.
iv) Career and Job Ambiguity: If the employees would not have a specified direction
in their career, there could be immense uncertainty. As a result, they would not be able to
evaluate their skills and also build a proper learning plan.
v) Lack of Recognition: The employees would become highly unmotivated if they
would not be getting proper recognition in work (Beehr, 2014). Although, IBM is focusing on
work life integration, there are few employees, who are not getting proper recognition from
their works.
vi) Poor Interpersonal Relations: Poor interpersonal relationships amongst the
employees is another significant work stressor for the employees in IBM and these are
needed to be resolved effectively.
vii) Harassment: Several negative impacts on both the organization and individual
related to harassment could also be termed as another vital and significant work stressor for
the employees of IBM (Holton, Barry and Chaney, 2016).
The most vital strategy for managing stress in the workplace of IBM would be
tracking the stressors. As soon as the management would be keeping a track of the stressor,
they would be able to take up relevant steps against them for proper prevention. The second
strategy is to establish boundaries and getting support from the top management. This
particular strategy would help the employees in IBM to understand the present issues and that
they should focus on work life integration and maintain a work life balance (Tan et al., 2014).

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It would be effective for them in enhancing the chances of higher productivity and job
satisfaction to a high level and hence employee turnover would be reduced majorly.
Moreover, IBM is allowing its employees to work from home, if these employees would have
any type of issue in attending office, which is yet another significant strategy for stress
management in IBM.
The impacts of these above mentioned three strategies for stress management could be
limited by few cultural and social concerns. The first significant concern that is to be
considered on top priority would be cultural differences (Powell and Enright, 2015). Since,
IBM is doing business globally, there is a high chance that employees from different cultural
backgrounds might not work easily with other employees from diversified language and
cultural differences. The strategy of establishing boundaries could be stopped by
interpersonal conflicts amongst the employees. These conflicts could even be responsible for
increasing chances of stress in the business and the organizational management would not be
able to manage it completely (Holton, Barry and Chaney, 2016). Harassment and low
motivation are other popular and noteworthy social issues that might take place against the
stress management strategies in IBM. As a result, the overall effectiveness of these strategies
would be highly affected.

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References
Beehr, T.A., 2014. Psychological stress in the workplace (psychology revivals). Routledge.
Holton, M.K., Barry, A.E. and Chaney, J.D., 2016. Employee stress management: An
examination of adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies on employee health. Work, 53(2),
pp.299-305.
Powell, T.J. and Enright, S.J., 2015. Anxiety and stress management. Routledge.
Sharma, M. and Rush, S.E., 2014. Mindfulness-based stress reduction as a stress management
intervention for healthy individuals: a systematic review. Journal of evidence-based
complementary & alternative medicine, 19(4), pp.271-286.
Tan, L., Wang, M.J., Modini, M., Joyce, S., Mykletun, A., Christensen, H. and Harvey, S.B.,
2014. Preventing the development of depression at work: a systematic review and meta-
analysis of universal interventions in the workplace. BMC medicine, 12(1), p.74.
Tetrick, L.E. and Winslow, C.J., 2015. Workplace stress management interventions and
health promotion. Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav., 2(1), pp.583-603.