It’s Friday and if you haven’t already activated the emergency slide, grabbed a couple of beers and departed the office, there are a couple of matters arising from the actions of JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater that demand our attention.
First up, Crain’s New York Business reminds us that while Mr. Slater’s actions were extreme, the incident is by no means isolated. In fact industry experts say that more incidents like this can be expected to occur.
The article quotes Alan Sirowitz, director of clinical services at JFK Advanced Medical, a health center at the airport, who told Crain’s:
“There are more people reacting to anger triggers now than ever before, in every part of the airline industry. There are people who intentionally annoy flight attendants, and have an attitude of taking advantage of them because of their own stress factors.â€
Good point and it’s not just the airline industry that has stressed employees. Stress is a growing and costly problem in many industry sectors today, exacerbated by tough economic times.
According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), about one-third of workers report high levels of stress and high levels of stress are associated with substantial increases in health service utilization.
In addition, periods of disability due to job stress tend to be much longer than disability periods for other occupational injuries and illnesses.
The American Psychological Association estimates that workplace stress (including absenteeism, diminished productivity, employee turnover, medical, legal and insurance expenses) costs U.S. businesses about $300 billion a year.
And a 2009 survey by Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health found that companies that maintain health and productivity programs even amid the recession experience lower health care and disability costs.
However, companies are not doing enough to reduce stress experienced by employees due to excessive work hours, lack of work/life balance and fears about job loss, the survey said.
It found that only 24 percent of companies are taking actions to address excessive workloads, 40 percent are acting on work/life balance and 42 percent are addressing fears about job loss.
It’s worth noting that JFK Advanced Medical, the airport health center cited in the Crain’s story recently launched an employee-assistance support services program, according to the report.
The program is designed to provide the aviation workers community with counselors and programs for things like anger management, anxiety, depression and substance-abuse counseling.
More of these types of programs may be needed if we’re not to see more workers activate emergency slides in future.