We seem to be at the mercy of economic bubbles.  The housing bubble is what led the government to bail out large mortgage and financial institutions.  And while the economy seems to be steadily improving since that action was taken, Crisis Economics author Nouriel Roubini made headlines two weeks ago when he warned that "We are building the foundations of the next bubble."

However, another headline from two weeks ago made me think of a different type of bubble that seems to be building, and could be headed for a burst.  On May 10 WorldatWork reported on the results of employee engagement research by Manpower, which found that over 75% of workers said their workloads had increased following one or more rounds of company layoffs since the start of the recession.

This is to be expected – if a company's customer base does not drop off proportionally to cutbacks in talent, there will inevitably be some period of time in which there's literally too much to do, and too few people to do it.  However, close to 60% of survey respondents believe their workloads have grown "a lot."

This should be of concern to business leaders.  But what are the appropriate next steps?  I like the advice of the VP of Right Management, which conducted the survey for Manpower, as quoted in the WorldatWork article:

Encourage employees to build new skills.  Look for solutions together.  Giving employees ownership and engaging them in the discussion enhances satisfaction and commitment.  This will put the firm in a much stronger competitive position as the market improves.

This sounds remarkably like what our Chairman, Ken Lehman, advised in this Winning Workplaces editorial on why trying to "share the pain" before turning to layoffs makes good business sense.  We're now seeing the repercussions of some companies not following this strategy.

And guess what?  Small businesses on the whole may be better equipped to keep their "employee stress bubble," from a vastly increased workload post-layoffs, from bursting: Manpower reports that more than twice as many employees at large firms versus small firms say their workloads have increased "a lot."

One more thing: You may be asking, What would be the impact of the employee stress bubble bursting?  Well, we already know that in fairly good economic times, lost productivity due to stress costs companies, and our economy, over $300 billion per year.  I think a bursting of this bubble could amount to at least as much as the stimulus package ($787 billion), and maybe even up to $1 trillion.

So yes, employee stress is a big deal, and more leaders, in businesses large and small, need to pay close attention to how it manifests in their organizations.  In terms of solutions, they should turn to team building strategies like these to help build an overall more productive workplace culture – and one that gives their people a bit of breathing room.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons