Time Management as a Stressor for Helping Professionals: Implications for Employment FRANK HAWKINS LEE KLAS

This study summarizes and compares the findings of 5 studies completed between 1984 and 1994 that dealt with the factors that cause stress for 4 groups of helping professionals: regular classroom teachers, special education teachers, nurses in a tertiary care hospital, and social workers in child welfare. Time and its effective management proved to be the most signiflcant stressor category for all groups. Possible explanations for the persistence of time management concerns in these helping professions, and possible implications for employment counselors, both as helpers and information providers to those who seek to enter such professions, are proposed.

Whenever people in the helping professions meet at conferences, training seminars, retreats, or interdisciplinary sessions, the topic of "time" seems to come under discussion. There is not enough time to accomplish what is expected, not enough time to follow up earlier contacts, not enough time to keep up on one's professional reading. Time seems to be wasted or poorly managed.

But just how pervasive is this problem of time management in the helping professions? Can we demonstrate the problem in a more empirical manner? Are there demonstrable differences between helping professions? What are the implications for employment counselors in their role as providers of information and as counse- lors to clients considering such professions?

We have been involved with several research studies on stress and stress management in three helping professions in Newfound- land and Labrador-namely, teaching, nursing and social work. In these studies, the Wilson Stress Profile (Wilson, 1979) or a modi- fied version was used as the primary research instrument.

Rank Hawkins is a professor at the School of Social Work, Memorial University of Newfoundland-St. John's. Lee Klas is a professor in the Department of Education at the Uniuersity of Victoria, British Columbia. Correspondence regarding this ar- ticle should be sent to Frank Hawkins, School of Social Work, St. John's College, Memorial University of Newfoundland-st. John's, Newfoundland, Canada A1 C 5S7.

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RESULTS

Teachers in Specialist Roles

Klas. Kennedy, and Kendall-Woodward’s 1984 study focused on the stressors and stress levels experienced by a stratified random sample of 210 specialist teachers in the school system of New- foundland and Labrador. The general results of the study showed that specialist teachers experienced a moderate level of stress, re- gardless of the specialty, and that Time Management created sig- nificantly more stress than the other stressors under study for the specialist group as a whole and for most specialist subgroups.

Regular Classroom Teacher

The first major study of perceived stress among regular classroom teachers in Newfoundland and Labrador was conducted by Klas, Kendall-Woodward. and Kennedy (1985). This study involved a ran- dom sample of 588 regular classroom teachers who taught at the three organizational levels of the school system-primary, elemen- tary, and secondary.

There was a remarkable degree of similarity in perceived stress for regular and specialist teachers at all levels of the school system; the rank order for each of nine categories of stressors was almost identical. Time Management was found to be the highest ranking stressor, followed by Parent/Teacher Relations and Intrapersonal Conflicts. As a follow-up study to the 1984 and 1985 studies, Klas assessed

the relative ranking of stressors for over 500 Newfoundland teach- ers (Klas. 1994). Time Management was significantly higher than all other stressors for all teacher groups under study, except for Class- room Management and Discipline, which was equally stressful.

Nurses in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Linehan (1987) completed a study on stressors with a sample of 235 nurses at a 500-bed hospital in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Time Management was significantly higher than the other stressor categories for the entire sample. For 8 of 10 nursing specialist groups, Time Management was ranked as the highest stressor category; for the other two specialist groups it was ranked second only to the Nurse/Family Relations category. Also, Time Management con- tinued to be the highest ranked stressor category when the sample

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was divided into part-time and full-time nurses, bachelor of nursing and registered nurse graduates, and nurses working on 12-hour and 8-hour shifts.

Social Workers in Child Welfare

A study on stress as experienced by social workers was carried out in Newfoundland and Labrador in 1990. This study by Dunne (1 99 1) involved a province-wide mail survey of social workers employed full-time in child welfare. The findings revealed that the major causes of stress for child welfare workers were Organizational Factors and Time Management, with the vast majority of respondents (97% and 87940, respectively) reporting moderate-to-high levels of stress in these categories.

DISCUSSION

Difficulty with the availability and management of time was the primary cause of stress for the professional groups in these stud- ies, and the uniformity of the findings merits further examination. What do these professional groups have in common? What fea- tures of their work environments provide explanation for these find- ings? What are the implications of these findings for employment counselors?

The helping professionals represented in these studies are all government employees: public sector funding in health, education, and welfare has suffered serious cut-backs in recent years.

Social workers have had to contend not only with large caseloads but also with cases that are increasingly complex and demanding in terms of time, such as frequently reported incidents of child abuse. Teachers, both regular and specialist, face workloads that are increasingly complex and demanding. Students with special needs put increasing demands on a teacher’s time and energy. Simi- larly, hospitals are increasingly populated with patients who are acutely ill and in need of specialized services: reduction of acute care beds and professional staff, coupled with an increasingly so- phisticated technological environment, places special demands on nursing personnel.

In times of financial constraint, human service personnel have fewer opportunities to participate in conferences and staff training activities. Staff training and development are necessary to the pro- motion and maintenance of efficient and professional practice stan- dards: without such training and development, staff morale can

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suffer and the management of time can become problematic. One counselor reported that:

As an Employee Assistance Program Counsellor in a Federal Government de- partment which is responsible for providing employment counseling and so- cial security programs to the public, I have offered numerous stress management workshops to employees, who are working in an environment of “doing more with less.” The most common reaction to work-related stress supports the notion of ’too much to do and too little time.” (P. Rose, personal communication, January 1995)

Time is of central importance when helping professionals are expected to do more with the same or fewer resources. In the area of workers’ compensation, Philpott (1995) points out that the chances of successfully returning injured workers to work is largely depen- dent on the amount of time that elapses after injury. A n early re- turn to work significantly increases the likelihood that workers will be successfully reintegrated into the workforce. He noted that the employment counselor is expected to provide timely and quality service, which can be difficult when working under time pressures. In addition, social changes, rising consumer expectations, and in- creasingly complex problems all exacerbate time problems.

Thus, effective time management skills are increasingly impor- tant to the helping professional. A cursory review of curriculum content in the areas of nursing, special education, social work and classroom teaching revealed the absence of specific content related to this area of skill development.

Employment Counselors need to be aware of potential time pressures and the need to develop effective time management skills. They themselves might benefit from becoming aware that other helping professionals experience time pres- sure and that one of the solutions may be in learning how to manage time better. (P. Rose, personal communication, January 1995)

Employment counselors have a special role to play in educating their clientele on the types of stressors they can anticipate in the workplace. We suggest that managing time is a significant stressor for certain helping professionals and deserves special attention in the counseling process.

REFERENCES

Dunne, G. (1991). Stress in child welfare-A study of perceived causes and levels of stress among child welfare workers in Newfoundland and Labrador. Unpub- lished master’s thesis, School of Social Work, Memorial University of Newfound- land, St. John’s, Canada.

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Klas, L. D.(1994). Memorial Uniuersity suruey of education graduates: Part 11. St. John’s, Newfoundland: Memorial University Press.

Has, L. D., Kennedy, L., & Kendell-Woodward, S. (1984). Factors which stress the special education teacher: A comparison to other educational specialists and regular classroom teachers. Canadian Journal of Exceptional Children, 1 , 66- 71.

Klas, L. D., Kendell-Woodward, S, & Kennedy, L. (1985). Levels and specific causes of stress perceived by regular classroom teachers. Canadian Counsellor, 19, 115-127.

Linehan. M. (1987). Report of a study of perceived levels and sources of stress among nurses in a tertiary care hospital. General Hospital and School of Nurs- ing, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Philpott, F. (January 1995). Manager of client services, Workmen’s Compensation Commission [Interview on topic of ethical dilemmas in employment counseling and rehabilitation]. St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.

Wilson, C. E. (1979). Stress profdefor teachers. San Diego, C k Department of Education.

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