32% of employees could be described as thriving under stress, study finds

A new study from the ADP Research Institute examines how stress affects the workplace, saying that most workers say they are moderately stressed—and that employers can do more to help them. The stress experienced by workers can be a major factor in their decision to leave their jobs or stay, the report added. 

“The labor market has witnessed a profound change over the past three years,” the researchers wrote. “Many of us are still trying to adapt. For some, stress continues to be off the charts.” As part of its quarterly Today at Work quality workforce research report, ADP has gathered monthly survey data to gauge how stress influences workers’ engagement, their productivity, and their commitment to their current employer. “Worker stress, when it’s not handled well, can be a drag on productivity and employee retention,” the report noted. 

Stress can motivate or paralyze

The researchers found that for some, a certain level of stress can be beneficial; they call this Eustress. They say this can be a feeling of an adrenaline rush, such as when a worker has to meet a challenging deadline. On the other end of the spectrum is distress, which they note can lead to less productivity, rather than more productivity. 

“What we’ve learned is that some people love fire drills,” the report said. “Others are paralyzed by them. That means measuring stress in the workplace isn’t as simple as asking a worker how stressed they are. It must be understood holistically.”

Different responses to stress

In their surveys, the ADP researchers found that most workers fell somewhere in the middle range between the two extremes of stress. The report said 32% of employees could be described as thriving under stress, 51% could be called rattled, and 17% could be called overloaded. The rattled, the report said, dislike stress but can cope with it. The thriving find stress to be engaging and motivating. The overloaded, on the other hand, score low on engagement, productivity, and loyalty to their employer. For example, the thriving cohort tends to have higher productivity, with 33% listed as highly productive, the rattled and the overloaded are at 17% in the high productivity measurement. 

Intent to leave is even more varied: in the thriving cohort, 62% said they had no intent to leave their current job; 33% were considering or in the process of leaving. For the ratted cohort, those numbers were 38% with no intent to leave, with 51% more likely to leave. The overloaded were at 23% with no intent to leave and 68% considering or in the process of leaving.

Small businesses at a disadvantage

The report found the size of a business can have a measurable effect on a stressed employee’s desire to stay with a job or employer. For example, the “considering or in the process of leaving” numbers for large employers were 66% among overloaded workers; for overloaded workers in small businesses, it was 70%. The most stressed-out workers (overloaded) also had a slightly higher number who said they had no intent to leave when they worked for large employers (25%), while that number decreased for those in the mid-market companies (22%), and small companies (20%).

Related: New report finds employee burnout reached 57%

“Stress isn’t dependent on the size of an organization,” the report said. “What might be different, though, is the intensity with which small business employees turn toward the exits when they’re overloaded.”

The report concluded with a note that it’s hard to know if there’s a causal relationship between stress and productivity or other metrics, but that the observed relationships appear strong. “Employees who have found a balance between good and bad stress might have the recipe for optimal functioning in the workplace,” it said. “One simple thing a leader can do is talk to their employees to determine whether stress is dampening their productivity, increasing their motivation or driving them to the exit.”