After six months, Greenberg went back and tested all the nurses again. He found that nurses with trained supervisors saw their levels of insomnia continue to fall, to the point where their levels were just slightly higher than those nurses whose pay had not been cut at all. Those nurses with untrained supervisors saw small decreases in insomnia levels, but they were still significantly higher than all other nurses.
Greenberg said he believes the training was successful because it helped supervisors focus more attention than normal on how they treated their employees -- and at a particularly stress-provoking time when those employees needed help.
"Most supervisors believe they treat their employees with dignity and respect, and they may be right. But in a high-stress time like these nurses were experiencing, you really have to go over the top in convincing people that you care, and that you're there to support and help them," Greenberg said.
"If you are too subtle, employees are likely to miss the message when they are under stress."
Because the training sessions were so successful, Greenberg repeated them after the study was completed for the supervisors of the two hospitals that had not yet instituted the new salary system. As a result, supervisors there were prepared when the pay cuts were announced.
Greenberg said he believes these results apply for other sources of job-related stress, not just pay cuts. That means other types of stress also may cause physical symptoms, such as insomnia, and that proper supervisor training may minimize those effects.
Greenberg said he plans to test his theory that superv
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Contact: Jerald Greenberg
Greenberg.1@osu.edu
614-292-9829
Ohio State University
23-Jan-2006