Causes of Stress at Target During the Festive Season
Among the major stress factors at Target stores during the festive season is the lack of work-family balance for employees. In fairness to the company, this stress factor is, to some extent, circumstantial. Normally, Christmas is a time for people to spend time with family. Family members will travel long distances to spend quality time with one another. However, the Christmas holiday also includes a shopping boom for retailers such as Target. It is also a time when families go shopping together. During the festive season, Target conducts aggressive marketing including promotions and offers that increase the volume of shoppers, hence increasing the employee’s workload.
For target employees, the combination of the two factors above creates a quandary. On the one part, they are under pressure to be with their families for the festive season. On the other, being the busiest time of the year, Christmas is when their employers need them to spend more time in the office and focus fully on their work. The push and pull of work and family place major pressure on target employees, leading to stress.
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From a theoretical perspective, psychologists apply the boundary theory to the issue of work-family balance. According to the said theory, there are two layers to work-family balance. The first is the actual work-family balance, where the employee is away from the family and at work. The second is where the employee may be away from work but constantly thinking about work or worried about it (Jacobsen, 2019). Mitigating work-family conflict requires a solution to both layers.
Strategy for Solving Work-Related Stress
Strategy 1: Employee Assistance Programs
One of the most useful strategies for alleviating work-related stress among employees is the Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs). An EAP is a confidential counseling program than enables employees to share issues affecting them with a professional (Bophela & Govender, 2015). The professional will then offer counseling and other assistance on how to handle the issues affecting the employee. Over and above the fact that Christmas involves higher volumes of work, Target employees could also be having issues outside the workplace such as domestic problems. Combining work and family stresses increases the level of stress on employees. Normally, most people will shy away from sharing personal problems more so in their places of work. The EAP enables employees to seek help in an anonymous manner, so as to eliminate the fear or stigma that comes with needing psychological or emotional help (Bophela & Govender, 2015). It would be an effective tool for target in assisting its employees.
Strategy II: Work-Family Balance
The main strategy for solving work-family conflict is to ensure that family members have enough time for employees. Further, Target should seek to minimize the effect of employees thinking about or worrying about work-related issues while spending time with family. A key component of work-family imbalance happens when families think about work issues when spending time with their families (Jacobsen, 2019). For example, the employee may be out for a family picnic but worried about the slow progress in meeting a quota or target. To manage the strategy above, Target needs more employees during the festive season. The company can take advantage of hiring temporary employees who happen to be free during the festive season as their professions are idle at the time. For example, most schools close for the festive season. Target can hire members of school support staff temporarily during the festive season. On the other and, Target can introduce the overnight shift as it would provide employees with more time to spend with their families. An overnight shift means that the employee will be at home during the daytime and can spend more time with family. Similarly, the overnight shift reduces the volume of work during the regular shift thus liming pressure and stress on employees.
References
Bophela, N. R., & Govender, P. (2015). Employee assistance programs (EAPs): tools for quality of work life. Problems and Perspectives in Management , 13 (2), 506-514.
Jacobsen, D. (2019, July 11). Boundary Theory, Work/Life Balance and Mindfulness. Retrieved from https://www.workhuman.com/resources/globoforce-blog/boundary-theory-work-life-balance-and-mindfulness .
