"Managing Job Stress Creates High-Performing Organizations"

Seoul St. Mary's Hospital Professor Kang Mo-yeol's Team
Higher Stress Leads to Greater Loss of Labor Productivity

A study has found that as job stress increases, labor productivity sharply declines. This is significant as it is the first time the correlation between job stress and labor productivity has been demonstrated using actual labor population data from South Korea.

Professor Kang Mo-yeol, Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital.

Professor Kang Mo-yeol's team from the Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, Catholic University, announced on the 3rd that they confirmed these results by analyzing 1,078 adults engaged in economic activities in South Korea.

The research team used the "Korean Occupational Stress Scale-Short Form (KOSS-SF)" to analyze job stress, and calculated health-related labor productivity loss by dividing it into "Absenteeism" (loss of working hours due to absence, early leave, tardiness, etc.) and "Presenteeism" (productivity loss caused by reduced work performance despite being present at work).

As a result, health-related labor productivity loss increased sharply as job stress increased. When controlling for age, gender, education level, household income level, and underlying diseases, the group with moderate or high job stress showed about a 20 percentage point greater health-related labor productivity loss compared to the group with low job stress.

Additionally, when investigating the seven subdomains of job stress, five areas?job demands, job insecurity, organizational system, inadequate compensation, and workplace culture?showed statistically significant greater health-related labor productivity loss in the high job stress group, except for job autonomy and interpersonal conflict.

As job stress increases, health-related labor productivity loss has been shown to rise sharply. [Data provided by Seoul St. Mary's Hospital]

Professor Kang stated, "Stress management is important for successful business operations, and if it is not properly managed and left unattended, it adversely affects workers' health, which in turn ultimately reduces labor productivity. This has been proven," adding, "It can be utilized in workplace management or sick leave policies in the future."

He continued, "Since work environments and organizational cultures vary depending on each company's circumstances, and the job stress factors perceived by members are diverse, actively managing these can preserve labor productivity," emphasizing, "Ultimately, if you want to create a healthy and efficient organization, it is reasonable to minimize and manage stress factors."

The results of this study were published in the recent issue of the international journal in epidemiology and health fields, Epidemiology and Health (IF=5.919).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.