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The following article was published in the Charleston Post & Courier's Business Major, a featured monthly column in the Business Review Section on October 15, 2001. Post-Attack Stress Beginning to Plague Small BusinessesBy DOROTHY P. MOORE Special to The Post and Courier Business Major The terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania have created heightened levels of stress across the U.S. We have paused to mourn the loss of friends, family, colleagues and strangers who were innocent victims. Economic impacts of the attack are being felt by small business owners. Those effects include work stoppages, decreased demand for goods and services, and problems in shipping and delivery services. Some businesses face a cash flow crisis in making payments to vendors, many of whom now request cash on delivery. The spine of the American economic system is made up of more than 24 million small businesses who employ over 53% of the private workforce. Owners who appeared to be doing fine only last month are now grappling to stay afloat. If their businesses go, so do the jobs of their employees. The economic aid being suggested may not be enough. Applications for loan bailouts to the Small Business Administration have reached an all time high. But there is still a certain level of collateral required to secure these, and many businesses are not eligible. Interest rates have been lowered but the effects may not be felt in time by businesses that need it the most. In previous columns I have reported the cost of excess stress to health and well being in the workplace. In normal times, the costs of worker disabilities easily run more than $340 billion annually. Curtailing these costs has been a major strategy of progressive and pro-active organizations. Entrepreneurs and managers are particularly susceptible to stress, a phenomenon linked to the amount of risk in the business venture or industry and the fact that the problems of subordinates often get loaded on a manager or owner. Reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal indicate that managers and owners nationwide are facing high levels of post-traumatic stress. Among the stress effects is a tendency to focus on reevaluating one's contributions at work and home. While there is no easy way to get rid of the new stress, there are some research findings that may be helpful to managers, small business owners, and their employees. Stress comes from the perception of opportunities or threats that one sees as important but fear they might not be able to deal with effectively. Nearly everyone experiences work-related stressors, and these are generally accepted as a way of life; conflicts have always been present between job requirements and family responsibilities. However, in the wake of the tragedy, there appears to be a new evaluation of the value of the long hours and ideas of 100 percent dedication to work. The perceived threat or opportunity (it makes no difference if the perception is real or imaginary) triggers changes in brain chemistry and neural transmissions. This is stress. When it continues, there are changes in the body's internal environment. It is our body's way of saying that we have failed to adapt or adjust to meet a situation or that we have done so but at the price of physical or mental disturbance. People with a low stress tolerance are the most vulnerable. After Hurricane Hugo my husband and I completed an intensive study of the stress impact on Sullivan's Island residents. While this was a natural disaster rather than a terrorist attack, and the study was conducted nearly nine months afterwards when islanders were well on their way to rebuilding, we found that our respondents considered the impact of the hurricane to be more stressful than any other single life event. Not only did people who lived on the barrier islands feel stressed out from the recovery efforts, the effects were compounded when they returned to work environments in which others had not shared the devastation of battered and lost properties. Feelings that co-workers had little understanding of what they were enduring on a daily basis added to the stress. There is a lesson here. The empathy we have recently seen for victims of the terrorist attacks clearly will be needed many months down the road. But we also need to continue to assist those who were indirectly involved: employees returning to smoke or ash-damaged buildings, workers whose livelihood has disappeared, people suffering job losses, and business owners struggling in a damaged economy. Smart companies are providing a time for healing for employees because they realize that excessive stress, especially during this time of high vulnerability, can have important physical and psychological consequences detrimental to job performance. Coping with stress involves two strategies. The first is problem-focused, the steps one can take to deal directly with sources of the stress. The second is emotion-focused. It includes rest, exercise, and support from others. What steps can a small business take to deal with post-traumatic stress?
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