What COVID-19 Taught Us about How We Deal with Stress

Life unfolds through a series of significant moments in our lives. Whether it is the loss of a loved one, the arrival of a child, or the pivot of a career path, these moments can upend our lives, leaving us feeling out of control and often helpless. In moments such as these, when our whole world is jolted, the unknown lingers over us, creating a new reality of uncertainty and stress.

In 2020, the whole world felt the harsh jolt of COVID-19 as the pandemic raged from country to country. The abrupt change in lifestyles, daily routines, jobs, and even personal connections drastically affected everyone, leaving each person to cope with the stress these changes created. While some did this by exercising or finding a new hobby, others refused to acknowledge the toll this jolt took on their mental health and well-being. Coping mechanisms differed from person to person, creating a specific coping profile for everyone.

In the wake of the pandemic, there is little else to do but to learn from what we all experienced. In  “Understanding Coping at Work During Socio-Environmental Jolts: A Person-Centered Investigation,”  Maira Ezerins and Profs.Christopher Rosen and Rebecca MacGowan from the Walton College of Business, Mahira Ganster (University of Arizona), Allison Gabriel (Purdue University), Nitya Chawla (University of Minnesota), and Jerel Slaughter (University of Arizona), explore how employees coped with stress at work during the COVID-19 pandemic to understand how people can better manage that stress in future socio-environmental jolts.

Stress and How We Deal with It

Previous research says that a person’s stress can come from many different sources, such as their work environment, the people around them, and even their thoughts. Once stress begins to set in, people often agonize over their stressors. As people try to determine how the stressor affects their reality by comparing their current circumstances to their ideal reality, the stress worsens, creating a harsh cycle that continuously increases stress levels.

During the pandemic, many employees began to stress over the many changes to their lifestyles and work environments. Without being able to leave their house or socialize with others, the isolation caused people to agonize over their stress more often, amplifying the stress cycle. This thought cycle was not singular to the pandemic. It occurs in most stressful situations, causing people to continuously think about how they wish their reality could return to how it was before.

To minimize this effect, people use coping to reduce the difference between their current reality and how they wish it to be. Taking action through various coping strategies can give them a sense of power over their stressor. Previous research suggests five main types of coping strategies used to cope with work stress: changing the situation, accommodation, devaluation, avoidance, and symptom reduction.

Each strategy reduces or minimizes stress from perceived exposure to stressful situations. In simple terms, employees have different ways of dealing with the situation when facing challenges. They might change how they see the stressful aspects, making it less bothersome (changing the situation). Alternatively, they could adjust their expectations to match the reality (accommodation), downplay the importance of the situation to reduce stress (devaluation) or shift their focus away from the stressful thing (avoidance). They can also manage their physical or emotional reactions to stress through things such as exercise or meditation (symptom reduction).

While each of these coping strategies are effective on their own, they are often combined to form a specialized coping strategy that helps individuals cope with stressors in a more personalized way. This research refers to this idea as a “person-centered” view of coping strategies. Though each person is different in coping, this research identified five recurring profiles of people that tend to use similar combinations of coping strategies.

Five Types of Copers

The first and largest group identified were the “non-copers.” This group showed low engagement in changing the situation, accommodation, devaluation, avoidance, and symptom reduction. This type of coper might not feel a significant difference between their current state of reality and their desired state, meaning they do not feel the need to use any of these strategies and might think they would be a waste of time.

However, another reason a person might be considered a non-coper could be a lack of resources or freedoms needed to cope. For example, if someone works at a place that does not allow them the freedom to adjust their environment to fit their specific needs, this might have caused a lack of coping strategies. In this case, this strategy could also worsen the job performance if they are not dealing with the additional stress they are experiencing.

The second largest group showed higher rates of changing the situation and accommodation while scoring low in other categories. These results suggest that these types of employees made concessions by adjusting their desires and actively shaping their new work environment to fit their needs, giving them the name of “compromisers.” For example, because nurses were required to work in-person through high-interaction contexts, they began to adjust their roles to make the best of the situation, flexing rules and regulations to fit their new reality.

Unlike the non-copers, compromisers may see a more significant effect on their lives from the change in their work environment or were empowered by their place of work to engage in various coping strategies, allowing them to adjust their work environment as they saw fit during this time of uncertainty. This research found that through their use of accommodating goals and ability to be flexible to the ever-changing situation, compromisers had increased levels of effort and performance related to pandemic-related work challenges and issues.

Alternatively, “moderate devaluators,” engaged in more avoidance-oriented coping mechanisms. This group reported moderate use of all coping strategies except devaluation, where they scored higher on the scale. This research found that moderate devaluators coped by minimizing the impact of the pandemic.

 The second study in this research uncovered two additional coping groups: “moderate copers” and “high copers.” Moderate copers showed the use of all five coping mechanisms on a moderate scale, using accommodation the most. High copers, on the other hand, scored highly for four out of five of the coping mechanisms, with devaluation only being used moderately.

Work Environment and Coping Mechanisms

Factors, such as work uncertainty, work location, and work arrangement autonomy also influenced each coping mechanism. For example, the study found that those who reported more work uncertainty were likelier to belong to the moderate copers profile. In addition to this, those who worked more in-person were more likely to be a high-coper. With this information, researchers found that more in-person work was linked to a higher usage of all coping mechanisms. While in-person work increased coping strategies, work autonomy gave workers freedom to use many different coping strategies. The more freedom participants had to adjust their work-life to fit their needs meant that they had the freedom to cope however they needed to.

Moderate copers reported the most somatic complaints such as headaches and eye strain, while non-copers and high copers reported very few somatic complaints. The researchers also found a correlation between job performance and coping profiles. For example, high copers were found to have the highest level of job performance while non-copers and moderate copers reported worse job performance.

Navigating Uncertainty

Despite their differences, each coping profile shares a driving force that increases their need to enact their strategies: uncertainty. Whether it is uncertainty over job security, location changes, operation adjustments, or any other drastic change, uncertainty increases the stress levels of their employees. Clear communications with employees about any changes and adjustments can mitigate the effects of an extreme jolt such as the pandemic. Carefully crafting communications to provide clear and direct messages about operations will give employees a sense of comfort. Knowing their employer wants to help gives workers something to hold onto as they navigate the new work atmosphere and environment.

This research also indicated that working in person can be a stressor in itself, meaning that as companies return to in-person work, many employees are dreading that transition.  To help make the transition more enjoyable, employers should take steps to mitigate the environmental stressors created by an office space. For example, managers should remain flexible with job demands and changes in work procedures to decrease the necessity of workplace coping. In addition to this, trying to cut down on environmental stressors such as noise, bad lighting, and other environmental factors will be crucial in creating an environment that employees are eager to return to.