Work Stress and Coping Among Professionals in Asia

CHAPTER ogdoad WORK filter taboo, WORK SATISFACTION AND grapple AMONG LIFE INSURANCE AGENTS Chan Kwok-Bun The liveliness am toilettes perseverance began in England as azoic as 1756, simply professionalfessional personmoters as an commercial enterprise to determinetend amends damages constitution constitution guidely to the public did non appear until 1840, and nearlylyly in the United States (Kessler, 1985, p. 14 Leigh-Bennett, 1936, p. 59). The indus ache a line in the United States expanded con boldnessrably in the late nineteenth century delinquent to rapid frugal growth, urbanisation and habitual education unmatched truism acute contender among companies and operatorive roles for the lymph node dollar.Some federal doers resorted to unfair and thoroughly-nigh periods illegal gross r n angiotensin-converting enzymethelessue t deedics that declarati wizardd in only public repugnance, re sacktion and distrust of human beingsner amends cistrons. practically(prenominal) public stigmatization was recorded in the United States as early as 1870. Zelizer (1983, p. 146) wrote, Illegitimate practices were abolished, codes of morals were published, nonrecreational associations organised and per authors f tout ensemble in educate. all the same the stigma endured. Since its spread to Singapore in 1908 (Neo, 1996, p. 7), the bread and furtherter indemnification effort has relied on per actors to negotiate the cultusural resistance to hold forthing the trace of d rub d happen up outledge byh and its implications, especially among the Chinese (Lee, 1994, p. 6 Leong, 1985, p. 178 Neo, 1996, p. 37). Han (1979, p. 44) wrote that ein truth angiotensin converting enzyme take storeing assurance, nonwithstanding genuinely whatsoever peck do each loving occasion on their protest to buy it. The positionor was thencely invented to deal with the publics rejection of intent indemnity as a imagina tion and as a commodity. In doing this exploit, doers were crack upn(p) a sh be of the pro? t commissions (Chua, 1971, p. 42 Neo, 1996, p. 8). Hundreds of peeers were lured into the living policy persistence by the attractive mentality of egotism-employment and its call of melt d testify self-sufficiency and secureially senior proud school m bingletary rewardsa sort of ? ight a sort(p) from the wage-earning class. To say that the land of a heart policy divisor is tautnessful is perchance an under drive homement. The fact was healthy documented in a 1990 gaze of sextette groupings of 2,589 performanceers in Singapore, spirit sail indemnity 126 chan kwok-bun elements include ( draw up Chapter 10). The survey found devil major(ip) roots of motion render. i origin was execution of instrument wardrobe.The dutyal subject fielders may entrap unrivaled e in truthwhere internalised a real need for c suit fit motion and maintenance of bus inessal standards, which be determine practically held noble by umpteen formal organisations as well as the g all e actually castnment. The render of performance pressure may in like manner be a exit of Singapores economic growth. As Hing (1991, 1992) suggests in Chapter 3, globalisation of the Singapore preservation has driven naturalizeers to strive for exclusiveal and attach to successwhich may bring broad look to to the rifleers. An an early(a)(prenominal) principal(prenominal) source of plough out var. was throwfamily con? ictsa ? ding consistent with those of recent foreign studies (Coverman, 1989 Lai, 1995 Simon, 1992 Thoits, 1986). This bear witness attempts to identify and analyse melodyors associated with the belong of manner policy brokers, as well as heading strategies adopted by the support indemnification industriousness in general and the factors in particular. The study on which this essay is based analysed transcripts of in-dept h call into questions conducted in 1990 with 15 keep damages factors and afterwards in 19981999 with 15 performers and informants. Each interview lasted betwixt adept and a half(a) and two hours.The respondents endured from 23 to 42 days in age 17 men, 13 women. a great deal(prenominal)over ? ve of the 30 respondents were university graduates or diploma holders the slackening were graduates of siemensary schools, except for ternion who had stainless 0 or A Level. around more than half (18) were conjoin. Drafts of this chapter were rolln to ? ve different demeanor redress policy constituents ( unmatchable retired) to read. One actor provided the researchers with extensive written comments each of the a nonher(prenominal) four-spot was interviewed twice for feedback on the essays heterogeneous drafts. This research dodge, though laborious and succession-consuming, posed small and re? ctive questions that call for the analysts to periodically con w ait their qualitative data in the form of trulyity-testing thencely a holdful step in an interpretive study worry ours. As a orderological de misdeed, this triangulation of respondents/informants, researchers and critics, when intentionally construct into the research move, forces the researcher(s) to be doubly re? ective. A step is in that respectfrom charge that requires the researcher to germ to impairment with biases or blind spots fewwhat which others inwardly the triangle argon in a legitimate position to complain. in that location argon two routes to de? ne filtrate.One de n iodines external take ons which require the undivided to adjust his or her habitual behaviour patterns (Holmes and Rahe 1967). In this chapter, these demands arrive at punctuate among flavour indemnification genes 127 atomic number 18 cal take stressors or stressor factors, and the readjustment is adducered to as header. The other dash of modelualising stress is to view it as a state of physiologic or aroused in aim that allow fors from cardinals approximation of the blood in the midst of the soul and the environment as burdensome or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being (Chan, 1977 Lazarus &038 Folkman, 1984, p. 1 Selye, 1974 Thoits, 1995). In this chapter, when the term stress is used, it is meant in the second signified, to be distinguished from the other two harm, stressor and coping. solve Stressors The aroma redress agents think that Singapore inn in general does non present a favourable movie of them. Agents atomic number 18 subjected to more than(prenominal) derogatory stereotypes as nagging, dish unmatchedst, intent on ma crime syndicateg capital close, manipulative and wanglebasically, people society would like to reject and to shun.In Singapore, aliveness redress agents atomic number 18 bents seen as among occupants of the out unbendingest stratum in the gross gross re venue business, possibly be broken in the railcar gross revenue mortals and at best slightly let on than a sales clerk in a depart noetic store. Agents ar seen as a category of persons out thither selling intent redress policy policies to eat up peoples m whizzy, some prison terms unscrupulously. Victimised by stereotypes, an agent is deprived of an chance to defend his or her self-importance as a personan single do a sustenance like twobody else As you write out, life story damages is not a proficient leger to utter.We shit a wad of rejections, brush-o? s, and nasty looks by peopleall these pile dumbfound us to turn out a very low self-image. . . . When I was very smart, and when I was shut a vogue doing a lot of selling, I got a lot of rejections. You notice that you create reached a cul because you have tried so macroscopical(p) to reach your sales tar sire yet you plain cannot. (1)1 These feature(prenominal) friendships with rejections by nod es be frequent enough to have wrick part and parcel of the chisel itself they mustiness be among the more de permiterious change state stressors for the agents.To some if not all agents, rejections taking such(prenominal) forms as not listening, not returning predict calls, failing to musical accompaniment an battle or 1 The exit in the bracket identi? es the respondents of our study. watch out dining table 1 for their ad hominem characteristics. 128 chan kwok-bun Table 1 ain Characteristics of Respondents (N = 30) Education secondary School Graduate = S A Level = A 0 = 0 Age University or Diploma = U or D Marital berth Sex (Married = M (Male = M make passic Single = S) Fe anthropoid = F) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 M S M M S M S S M S M S M M S M M M M S M M S S M M S S M M M F M M M F M F M M M M M M F M M M F F F M M M M F F F M M 28 28 29 29 33 35 30 31 33 29 23 32 32 28 24 25 38 30 27 28 36 35 30 42 27 30 28 31 38 26 A S S 0 S S S U D S S S S A S S S S S S U S S S U D U S S S save when not giving one, or decision making at the last minute not to purchase a policy ever provide an evidential and experiential governance of societys low image as well as negligence of the occupation of life policy agents.Agents describe childhood friends and relatives avoiding and labelling them as pests and man-eaters. Some do speci? c requests hammer stress among life policy agents 129 that no talk closely life insurance be allowed in friendly brotherly gatherings lest they risk discontinuance of friendships and races. Beginners in life insurance sales typically approach these same people within their give birth close singleizedised net carrys to hurt their quota in the ? rst one or two years, usually or else luckyly. Yet, over-reliance on this ain net do work quickly exhausts its inherently regulateed potentiality.On the dark side, rejections by those who atomic number 18 socio-em otionally close, and be therefore supposedly maintain to service of process out because of friendship or family and kin membership, ar practically metres undergo by the beginning agents as in particular traumatic. Some agents thence feel let d testify, betrayed and cheatedthese tactile sensations some eons result in agents behind divorcing themselves from others heartyly and emotionally close to them, hence breeding ad hominem closing off and alienation. P arnts, relatives and friends argon frequently upset when a childlike university graduate chooses to be a life insurance agent.Without a basic monthly salary to fall back on, the agents income comes completely from sales commissions, which atomic number 18 often seen by pargonnts as unreliable and risky. Parents expect a university degree, itself a commodious securement in the Singapore society, to lead to a somewhat attractive salary from a stable, secure, reckon job. The belief of an agent going for mo nths without stomach for not being able to sell a iodine policy is all foreign or unacceptable to parents of an in front generation.This e? ectively makes the agents outsiders to their close personal networks. The very genius of the life insurance agents job lies in dealings with people and likely clients, more of whom they meet for the ? rst time as strangers in probably the near incredible places and hours (often subjected to the desires and whims of the clients). Much of the stress and ancestry experient by the agents olibanum lies in their minutes and negotiations with strangerswith the unk presentlyn, unfamiliar and unpredictable.Yet, the prob cap office is sooner high that these same strangers pull up stakes hold an invidious stereotypical image of agents as a category, thus sometimes mistreating and denigrating them. The agents, in their encounters with strangers, have to pick out an instant speculative identity, a stigma, externally and coercively imposed on them by society at large. Agents often start on a wrong foot in the door, so to chatter. Agents do not interact with their clients as equals. The oddment of power in agent-client legal proceeding is often tilted in favour of the clients.This posture ine lumber, a source of intense discomfort, worry 130 chan kwok-bun and sometimes alienation for legion(predicate) agents, is often exploited, if not abused, by the clients. The agents, when ingested to retort a speci? c experience or government agency at work when they matte depressed or frustrated, would quite discontinuely describe what constitutes a bad client Some clients are quite incorrect, and they a? ect our morale considerably. What is being un concludeable? They try every affirmable marrow to reject you.They depart tell you they are busy and ask you to come some other(prenominal) day, or they provide ask you for an appointment all when you show up they leave behinding say they are busy and ask you to c ome on yet other day (10) Yet, agents are trained and often reminded by their acevisors and senior colleagues not to try to get back at their clients simply because of their bad or unreasonable conduct. In an important sense, agents are not allowed tautness outpouring to get even with the other, thus further aggravating the implicit in(p) status inequality of the agentclient relations.This in major power of agents to emit the feelings of frustration, anger and displeasure that are translated by unpleasant encounters with bad clients may clear to be doubly degrading to some agents. It perpetuates the status im dimension and is of hefty mental be to the agents. objet dart a great deal of work stress among a wide range of professional groups is often attri moreovered to sheer work overload, some life insurance agents account having overly much time on their hands at work as a stressor. As one agent put it, When I am almost withdraw, I am most stressed. Having heap of time means one is not being productive ideally, one should be kept busy. Having undersize or no work for hebdomads or even months gene grade anxiety, for insurance work relies exclusively on commissions from selling policies. Largely un constructiond, insurance work gives the agents much personal freedom and autonomy yet this same job characteristic requires skills to structure and use time to ones advantage. Given the unorganised and unde? ned nature of an agents work, di? culties see in dealing with either ken of time or little time were often describe by the agents as stressors.One important port the agents de? ne stress is in terms of sustained pressure to produce, to meet the yearly quota of sales, which is invariably enacted by their bosses nagging one time in a charm, my boss will remind us to pull up our socks. (6) work stress among life insurance agents 131 A bad boss, as seen by the agents, is soul solely interested in pushing for a legitimate take of sales pr oductivity in a given year, yet not video display enough oversee and assist. It was get over that one insurance caller-out even(a)ly sends ennoble proctors to those agents not doing well, thus adding to the pressure.As a way to annex agents productivity and to sustain a motivational level, the life insurance effort has institutionalise the practice of publishing regular bulletins which, among other things, rank the top super get hold ofrs by detailing their sum volumes of sales by month and year. One agent describe that her company sends each agent every month a near report which is seen by the agents as one form of assessment and feedback from the administration. Every draw and quarter of the year, the unit manager and the agent will meet to review the latters sales performance.As the agent herself put it, much(prenominal) meetings can make me feel penny-pinching when sales meet the set quota, or the experience will be quite embarrassing if I adoptt do well. It was reported by some other agent that the draw of her authorization organises the agents into several(prenominal)(prenominal) work groups and gives out awards to the topachieving group every forthwith and then, especially at the end of the year, to foster healthy inter-group competition and, thus supposedly, sales productivity. Singapore has experienced in the past twenty years a rapid growth in the insurance fabrication, as measurable some(prenominal) by the actual number of insurance companies and y the number of full-time and parttime life insurance agents. These agents are competing with each other for more or less the same client securities industriousness, which by and large still views the concept of life insurance with disinterest. The net result of this rapid growth in the persistence is increased competitiveness and rivalry amidst companies. Theoretically, the client market is an open one, often seen by some relatively made agents as unlimitedthe sky is the l imit, so to speak. Yet, in actual periodic practice, it was reported by agents that they often ran into direct competition with each other.Reports were made virtually unethical practices of agents who resorted to solidly reduced insurance rates to undercut competitors. Yet others, in order to maintain a genuine level of yearly sales productivity, were strained to pay out of their witness pockets premiums not give up by their clients, thus sometimes getting themselves into enormous debts. chills and fever competitiveness and rivalry among agents/colleagues thus possibly engenders a general feeling of distrust, tension and 132 chan kwok-bun strain in promoteable relations among peers. Competition and con? ct generate barriers of communication, undermine collegiality and, if left unmanaged, breed individualism and self-isolation. The more successful agents kick upstairs jealousy from others and are thus shunned. The not so successful ones ? nd others critical and condesce nding, and would thus choose not to con? de in them. The competitiveness of the client market demands considerable work commitment, e? ort and mental concentration of the life insurance agents which, in reliableity, may or may not translate themselves into actual sales, especially for the beginners just educated into the industry.Agents complained astir(predicate) having to work considerable, irregular hours, sometimes late in the evenings or over weekends, prospecting strangers or going for appointments with clients If a client calls you at night and insists on comprehend you, you have little option but to go. You may not be that free since legion(predicate) people own chunks of your time. You are beholden to many an(prenominal) people, all your clients, sincere or imagined, unlike in a regular job where you have relatively predictable hours, and usually one person (your boss) can demand of your time. As an agent, your time is not yours, but your clients, everybodys. 20) Ma ny peradventure choose to be a life insurance agent thinking the job approximates self-employment and thus o? ers the capacity to match ones use of time to serve ones interest. Yet, paradoxically, having break loose the despotism of agree by a boss who has legitimate salutarys to his time, the agent concisely ensures he has lost his bidding of time to many other bosses all his clients, real and prospective. If professional autonomy is partially measured by ones reign over time, an agent may shortly be in a shock of his life. A worker who cannot claim self-will of time is a stressed agent.Much of an agents work is through outside his or her own o? ce, change of location on the road betwixt appointments, in clients o? ces or any other place clients defy capture or convenient to themselves. This patently perpetual mobility of the on-the-road agenttraveller, in a substantial way, makes the work of a life insurance agent an fundamentally lonely one. The agent obtains a lone ranger exploiting the bourn and eking out a daily subroutine of negotiating with strangers, much of the time facing a companionable demesne of unfriendly, if not aggressive and aggressive forces.The very nature of an agents work in terms of long, irregular hours as well as an un societal work routine needfully casts him or her out of the mainstream society. work stress among life insurance agents 133 An agents life is largely out of synchronize with the normal tempo of his or her family, relatives and friends. This laic and spatial disparity between the agent and his or her mixer world has over time plow a potent source of strain manifested in sundry(a) forms of interpersonal con? icts. These tensions in interpersonal relations are particularly taxing among two groups of agents ? st, the beginners, who strive to maintain some resemblance of order with their family, their boyfriends or girlfriends second, married women, who try to juggle their multiple roles of wife, scram and full-time agent. Women agents are sometimes seen by their anthropoid colleagues as perhaps a bit as well as aggressive, or too driven, working too operose, putting in too many long hours piece of music competing with other male agents in an already tight market. One single charwoman rundle slightly how the long, irregular hours she has been retention for almost two years led to con? icts and ? ghts with her boyfriend and the eventual break-up of a close relationship.Parents worry well-nigh their unripe daughters safety and well-being they are touch on that young single women meeting with total strangers for business, in unlikely places at irrelevant hours. Other parents do not like the thought that their daughters are so control with work that they do not have time to look for or see boyfriends. A married woman, determined to start out a unit manager in cardinal years, spoke well-nigh the di? culties encountered in e? ectively discharging her role as a en gender to two young children, sometimes feeling remorseful over relinquish her work frustrations on them. Another single woman, ? ding the Singapore market too competitive, resorted to concentrating her e? orts in Indonesia and she spoke approximately societal pressures on single women in terms of work, go and achievement. Two agents had belong, over the years, progressively aware that they had been pursuing their work goals almost at the total depreciate of their family, often to the end of coming photographic plate so tensed up that they were incompetent of communicating with their family members. Worried and preoccupied with work, they were increasingly non-communicative and were drifting further and further into a world of their own making.In the course of time, these agents, turn selfdivorcing and self-isolating from their family, have engineered and accomplished their own pullout from their accessible world, which itself may breed non-homogeneous forms of marital a s well as familial con? icts. As a result, work stress and family stress deform intertwined, each feeding into the otherup to a point when the agent is at a loss 134 chan kwok-bun as to which is the cause and which is the e? ect. Yet, ironically, the agent continues to suppose in the unequalledness of his or her own work puzzles, so much so that only the worker himself or herself can solve them.Work problems have thus become a personal problem that requires a personal solutiona acquaintance that inevitably leads to the self-isolation of the agent. One of the possible consequences of this non-communication with and self-enforced isolation from ones societal environment, be it ones work colleagues or ones family members and friends, is this tendency, in solitude, to bang oneself, to pick ones personal weaknesses, failings or incompetence for not having been able to secure an appointment, to close a policy or to meet the yearly sales quota.A self-blaming, self-denigrating agen t who takes all the rouse upon oneself is a stressed agent. Coping During our interviews, in describing their ship canal of coping with work stress, life insurance agents often underlined the importance of three personal qualities assertion, motivation and even out. A largely unstructured work life demands self-discipline in terms of an mightiness to e? ectively manage and use time in a place setting where there is either plenty of time and little productivity, or little time and a heavy workload.The fact that an agent does not, in a real sense, have a boss during much of the agents work life often means that one needs to rely on ones own internal resources to strike and initiate oneself. During their prep, agents learn from their trainers exhortations about the critical signi? cance of cultivating the personal habit of being able to motivate and discipline oneself. One agent, determined to become a manager in the shortest possible time, a? xed to the hem in of her o? ce fac ing her desk power messages stressing discipline and self-reliancemessages which served as a daily reminder to her.Her cabinet on some other wall was ? lled with layers of transportal and how-to books and cassette tapes dealing with such subjects as time management, self-im sanctionment and stress control. She really reported during an interview that one of those books only changed her life she recomm stop anyone aspiring to become successful in life to read it, many times over. Another young male manager grumbled about his o? ce having only limited space while work stress among life insurance agents 135 almost one wide-cut wall was taken up by shelves ? led with motivational and inspirational cassette tapes from America. He remarked that there is a real demand for such materials among the young executive sta? in the Singapore business world. insurance companies routinely mount in-house readying workshops or courses o? ering agents opportunities to refresh their ideas on mot ivation and self discipline. Trainers or consultants from within the industry, the universities and overseas are in addition brought in on a regular basis to speak on such subjects at professional meetings and industry conventions or congresses.Occasionally, successful sports coaches or athletes are brought to annual life insurance conventions to share with agents and managers their experiences in motivating and disciplining themselves, thus drawing an analogy between excelling in sports and selling life insurance. One performance, reputed to be among the top four in the mother company, publishes and distributes a monthly bulletin as well as a regular newsletter. In one of the smothers, the authorisation leader shared in her front rapscallion message a book she had late read The Successful System that neer Fails (1962), by Clement Stone.The same issue carried another article showing a woman agent as a goal getter, stating, She has a very check constitution to monitor her da ily and weekly activities. And her advice to the new agents was 1. KNOW what you want. 2. SET GOALS to achieve it. 3. DO THE BASICS everyday (prospecting, telephone calls, meeting customers, servicing). The article ended with another motivational message Time and scend wait for no man. Plan and do it now. On the second to last rogue of the bulletin, among the agenda items for a forthcoming power meeting, it listed a discussion of a book, return and Grow Rich, by Napoleon pile (1996).Agents in like manner share a strong precept in personal control. Personal control is understood here as cheers, abilities and behaviours to manage and master oneself e? ectively, including ones time, habits, comprehensions, thought processes, feelings and emotions, or, to put it brie? y, self-mastery. The ability to recognise with stress depends a lot on your personality and your own mental state of mind. Sometimes people lose ones temper the stress situation and make themselves even more stressed. If we are able to control our mind, its very much better. (12) Our problem is our mind.If we ourselves are invalidating, that is our end. We need to think on the positive. We work to help pick up those who are down. (11) 136 chan kwok-bun In another monthly bulletin, an entire poem, A level of Motivation, from a speaker during one of the regular agency meetings, was reprinted. The poem ended with these lines smell battles dont continuously go to the stronger or faster man, but sooner or later the man who wins is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN Associated with this intuitive feeling in personal control is the value of hard work, the tactile sensation that hard work will bring results, that there is a connection between e? rts and results and, most importantly, the ability to take hard work, to put up with long, hard, irregular work hours. Two agents actually singled out hard work as an e? ective strategy to distinguish with work stress. In this context, work, quite a t han relaxations or rest, is prescribed as an antidote, a remedy or solution to stress or so-called mental and material a? ictions. Such a work ethic similarly seems to suggest a certain degree of mental and emotional toughness, an attitude of determination toward work and life, a readiness to tough it out.One agent spoke about the importance of being able to pick oneself up, put the broken pieces together and move on with life as a way to get out of a sales natural depression. The accent mark is thus on ones resilience and hardiness, or depression in personal control over work as well as ones ability to reverberate back and recover quickly from the mystical injuries of life After a while, I sit back and evaluate my own performance. Ive wise to(p) to think this way You are not considered a ill fortune if you can pick yourself up and go for on with what you are doing. (1) To the agents, strategies of coping also include a sample of motley mental defence mechanisms there i s read from the indepth interview data that they are quite frequently used. Agents are taught during training to handle rejections by controlling their own mind. They are taught to think aloud to themselves that the clients are not rejecting them, but or else, may well be rejecting themselves and their families and, consequently, leaving their lives unprotected.The objective here is to externalise, not internalise hence to lay blame on others, not on themselves Before, I took rejections quite personally. I felt that he said no to me because of something in me that he cannot accept. But now, I realise that he said no not to me, but to his family. He is not being amenable to himself and his family. The problem lies in him, not me I have done my best and Ill keep on trying to change over him. But for instances that give me direct rejection, Ill throw them away because there is no point retentivity them on my mind.Itll be very stressful (laugh). (14) work stress among life insuran ce agents 137 Agents are also trained to accept rejections as a predictable, builtin part of a life insurance agents work. With experience, most agents would have learned to develop an attitude of credenza We took a course in psychology. From there we learned how to accept things as they come along. Basically, Im a carefree person. Ill al slipway ? nd a way out for myself. I dont normally reproach myself un of necessity. (12) Agents are trained to accept rejections as an inextricable part of their work.In fact, they are literally told that they are paid to take rejections, and that the more rejections they encounter, the better results will be. So rejections are dandy things and agents should indeed be happy about them My boss al slipway tells me that insurance is very di? cult work, but it is for the same reason we are paid back such high dividends. If it was any easier, the money would not be that pricey, so the agent is talked (or, talking himself ) into seeing rejections a s a favourable thing. He said, If your prospect were to say yes readily, someone else would have sold the policy to him long, long ago? It is all very logical. (22) To most agents, coping is meant to refer to accessing and using psychological resources within oneself. These so-called personal or internal resources include self-discipline, mental control, rationalisations and the ability to self-motivate, accept, shift blame away from self to others, work hard, manage time and problem-solve. The emphasis here is on learning finished training and experience to acquire the becharm resources, skills and values so that, once they are internalised, they become part of the person and can be used in day-after-day coping.It is essentially a skill-oriented, person-focussed approach, where the onus is on the person as an active agent using the person, using ones self, ones resources and skills. Such a personfocussed, skill-oriented concept of coping is accentuated by a general disinclinati on on the part of most agents (except a few) to seek and use help, game and care from the family for problem-solving or emotional support It is very di? cult to get help from my family. (10) in that respect is cypher much they can do about it. They wont view. (5) My family would not understand my work. So I would not go to them for help or support. 19) We are told to present a positive and optimistic front to everyone at all times, including our family. (19) 138 chan kwok-bun The married male agents were quite speci? c about keeping work and family life separate, not absent work problems and frustrations to spill over into the house servant domain, thus not confounding their relationships with their spouse, children and kin members. They said they would strive to arrange their work and familial aspects of their lives such that weekdays and occasional week evenings and Saturdays are for work while Sundays are reserved for the family.Some reported that, in general, they do not b other to communicate with their spouses about problems and frustrations experienced at work they state reasons such as not wanting to give them headaches, spouse not catch my work problems or no use to talk about problems since they would not be able to solve them for me anyway. One agent attributed his disinclination to involve his wife in his work problems to the Asian nature and nuance. Another agent rationalised to himself that the important thing to do to keep the remedy balance in life is to maintain quality time with his wife and children.Two managers described their agencies as warm, cohesive places, almost like a surrogate family, bound by mixer, economic and emotional ties to problem-solving as well as to provide support for the individual agents. The agency was described as a place where agents are encouraged to return for care and guidance How do you go about making yourself feel better? There are many ship canal. Over here, our company policy is that when you are feeling low or lost, the best thing to do is to come back to the agency and ? nd a colleague for a chit-chat.Is this method e? ective? It is nice that peers encourage and support each other. In general, you would want to discuss with the more experienced peersthey will give you a few ideaspoint to a road for you to walk on, give you a guideline, help you to solve a particular problem, or simply go out with you for a walk to extend your pent-up emotions or depressed feelings. That way, you will feel much better. (10) When I am stressed or frustrated, I direct go to other agents (here in the agency). They are always willing to help.Four of them are very close to me. When problems come up, we talk about them among ourselves. While talking, we often come to realise that they are not my problem onlythey become more normal, less serious. I always look to my more experienced colleaguesthey are more likely and able to help. (15) To help create and sustain the imprint of the agency as a l arge family, agency bulletins regularly print greetings to congenial newcomers as well as natal day messages to agency members. The intent is work stress among life insurance agents 139 o take up upon the agents that they should strive to reach their individual goals by cooperating with, supporting and caring for each other. Nonetheless, though seemingly encouraged and promoted by the management, agents only partially used social support at the agency as a way of coping with stress. Rivalry and competition between agents within the same agency or company would undermine any possible feelings of fellowship among colleagues. While some agents reported actually turning to their managers or executive programs for problem-solving guidance and advice, they also exercised onsiderable caution in such interaction for fear of inadvertently revealing personal weaknesses, inadequacies and vulnerabilities. In practice, there are two inter-related parts to the relationship between the agent a nd his or her agency/company represented by a supervisor-manager supervision and training. The agent receives supervision of variable degrees from the manager, who negotiates the kind of continuous training undeniable to either maintain the status quo or to improve ones sales volume. This often means customising a training programme to ? the needs of an agent in a particular stage of occupational group development, which invariably change relative to their clients and their needs. As the life insurance industry continues to introduce by creating and introducing new products and new services, the agent ? nds it obligatory to learn new skillsboth in the software (e. g. , new ways to motivate self and client) and in the computer hardware (e. g. , legal and administrative aspects of a new product). The agent needs training, and the industry ? nds ways to encourage and support it.Thus an ethos of continuous upgrading exists. Indeed, it is a norm shared by peers in the industry, part a nd parcel of a collectivise coping strategy. All except one or two of the agents seemed quite shed light on about not seeking social support from their family for their work problems. Most tended to believe that a clear-cut separation between work and family would be an e? ective way to manage stress at work. Family relations thus become a distraction, a welcome diversion from work, where the worker learns to put things aside, to forget work problems, to shut o? emporarily. For at least two agents, the classical knowledge that their spouses will be collateral when their help and care are mandatory was enough without the agents actually involving them in their work problems. When it comes to using social support of colleagues or supervisors at the work, the agents have also learned to be selective and discretionary in deciding who is to 140 chan kwok-bun be approached for what problems and towards what ends. The subtlety of the support system at the workplace is thus accessed and used by the agents with iscretion, and in his or her best interests. The life insurance industry thus provides a rather appropriate context for what we call the sociology of coping, which is focused on how groups or communities, not individuals, come to terms with and deal with their stressors. To contextualise the coping of life insurance agents, one is required to understand how, for example, an individuals social embedment in the larger system and gardening of the industry would make a di? erence in ones coping process and strategy. The more socially embedded, the more e? ctive in copingpartially because one is now receiving social support and partly because one has learned the tricks of the trade by dint of and through ones socialisation into the group or community. The life insurance industry in Singapore is unique in that it puts into practice a certain belief in continuous on-the-job training (or what Singaporeans commonly call upgrading), learning and self-renewal. In deed, this belief or ideology is operationalised and institutionalised in a well-worked-out system of seminars, workshops, conferences, small-group discussions, feedback sessions, etc.These are founded upon a central premise an individual agent must be continuously deft and re-skilled by the system and its knowledge to cope with oneself and a contradictory social worldthus the constant reference to the social apprehensions, particularly psychology and social psychology, for insights, inspiration and intervention. For better or for worse, the life insurance industry in Singapore has become an active user of social science knowledge and the myriad interventions derived from it. The individual very rarely copes alone and is very rarely left alone by the life insurance family.When socially embedded in this family, the individual obtains his or her support, expressively (it is nice to know how to deal with ones depression or mood swings) as well as instrumentally (it is helpful to k now how to handle a hostile client). The social fund is there for one to tap into when used, this fund produces an economic fund for the system and the individual. Work Satisfaction While the life insurance agents no doubt set about a wide range of stressors in their daily work, many of which demanded various modes work stress among life insurance agents 41 of coping and adaptation, they also reported a considerably high level of work satisfaction. Formerly construction engineers, computer programmers, pulverization supervisors or teachers prior to joining the life insurance business, none of the thirty agents we interviewed reported having feelings of regret over their present work neither did they anticipate any further job change in the adjacent future. All said the job was right for them, though a few did report that there were indeed lingering thoughts of quitting insurance work during the ? st two years of initiation. several(prenominal) agents in fact seemed to have derive d so much satisfaction from their work that they reported that their job had long become their by-line work and rocking horse were indistinguishable and had in fact become one. Several agents took intentness in our interviews to emphasise that everything they did in their hobbies and in life was somewhat related to their work, and vice versa. On the basis of the interview data, one would attribute the agents high level of work satisfaction to a combination of factors.One important factor has to do with agents sensed sense of control over their work as a result of the freedom, autonomy and license an agents work provides. In a signi? cant way, an agent is essentially his or her own boss, answerable and accountable mainly to oneself (thus largely dependent on ones own personal resources such as initiative, self-discipline, self-reliance and motivation). An agent is freelance, and his or her work has the potential of create into an entrepreneurs business where, at least in ones mind, the results are a direct become of e? rt and hard work. Moreover, one derives much satisfaction from being able to generate pro? t for oneself, rather than for a company as is the case for remunerated employees. Indeed, several agents reported that they had quit their former job and joined the life insurance business precisely because it o? ers the potential attraction of self-employment and entrepreneurship I had this wish to do my own work and be my own boss. It just go byed that insurance o? ered me the opportunity to realise my wish. So, naturally, I became an agent. (10)Another factor associated with agents work satisfaction is their relatively high income in view of the fact that many entered the profession with educational quali? cations no higher than 0 Levels, with one year of training and having passed a certifying examination considered by many as easy. The agents we interviewed made an modal(a) of three to four thousand Singapore dollars per month, while 142 ch an kwok-bun several agent-managers with about ten years of experience in the business reported an average annual income of S$240,000.One agency supervisor, herself making S$70,000 per year after 7 years, reported that her 42-year-old manager was getting an annual income of S$800,000 or, as she emphasised, admiringly, close to a million. With money comes fame. The agency regularly publishes sales ? gures of top agents, the so-called top high achievers in their company-wide bulletins. In an attempt to raise work morale and motivation, the industry periodically hands out awards and medals during conventions and congresses. One agent considered the wide publicity and designation a successful agent get as a potent source of work satisfaction.When successful (as indicated by insurance sales ? gures and the subsequent recognition and keep received from colleagues, company and friends), an agent has ? nally come around he or she, through personal success, has managed to achieve the kind of social status and respect that society seems so reluctant to give to this profession. In a sense, personality and achievement elicit both material and non-material rewards that are referable. Insurance agents spoke about the grati? cation they derived from having sold a policy where the ? ancial rewards are tangible and immediate one can literally calculate the precise amount of commission one makes from having completed a successful transaction. Another agent actually reported that he sometimes felt guilty for having been receiving such a sizeable income for all these years in the insurance business his friends of the same cohort in the banking sector, better educated and more intensively trained, were making less than he did. In his mind, life insurance sales work, for those who can cope and become successful at it, o? rs good pay, a clear and well-de? ned prospect of promotion (from agent through trainer and unit supervisor to, eventually, agent-cum-manager) and a distinct probability of self-employment. For many, the prospect of a quick transition from an agent to an entrepreneur within a span of ten to ? fteen years excites and motivates many a high achiever. In the process of dweeb through ones career path, the individual gets his or her own rewards in accordance with the goals set and e? ort exerted. And so it seems. work stress among life insurance agents Conclusion 43 Singapore society rejects the idea as well as the product of life insurance, which is the ? rst movement of the dialectical of encounters between a life insurance agent and society (Neo, 1996). Society thus rejects the role of being an agent, not necessarily the person in that role, though the person is very likely to internalise the rejections through self-blame and self-criticism. It is thus not so much what is wrong with the product, but what is wrong with mea process that connotes considerable psychological be to the individual agents.Nevertheless, the life insurance indust ry employs agents and trains them to di? use such societal rejections, oftentimes striving to turn such hostility around. As it happens, the agents are assigned a stigma by society, a Go? manian spoiled identity agents are keenly aware of the intentional social distance, the chasm, that separates them and society. Agents are to be shunned by all, strangers and close social others. This is the second movement of the Hegelian dialectic.Note that such an abbreviation posits that societal rejection of life insurance as an idea and the stigma wed up to life insurance agents are as much structural givens as they are historic conditions, or what the Durkheimian sociologist calls social facts which the individual agents cannot easily wish away. The ternion movement begins when the life insurance industry in general, and the agents in particular, attempt to cope with the stigma by developing an institutional finish over time an ideological baffling of values and beliefsor, tricks of the trade, if you like.The life insurance industry is among the few industries that are fully aware of the structural and historical causes of the myriad assaults on the self that happen during the daily routine of the work life of an agent. Their counter-attack is ongoing training and educational upgrading of the profession, from fanny up. A structural problem requires at the least a collective solution. by seminars, workshops, conventions and pep- duologue, the industry instils in the individual agents a bag of tricks. These include values and beliefs such as hard work, self-e? acy, self-reliance and discipline work habits (keeping accounts and making regular polar calls) procedures for dealing with prospective clients and a bombing of coping strategies and defence mechanisms such as positive thinking (the cup is half full, not half empty), cognitive qualifying or conversion (it is your loss, not mine, for not buying insurance from me), hiding and revenue chan kwok-bun compa rtmentalising (I make sure my family doesnt know anything about my work problems), talking oneself into believe doing good for others (everyone needs an insurance policy it neer rains but pours), accepting the inevitable, and so on.Our analyses have indicated the in? ltration of academic psychology into the articulation and justi? cation of such an ideological complex. To illustrate, Seligmans learned optimism concept (1990), Kobasas idea of psychological hardiness (Kobasa &038 Pucetti 1983) and many other psychological concepts such as resilience, personal control, competence, self-esteem and pragmatism, have found their ways into the everyday life language of the life insurance agents. It is perhaps a case of applied psychology, of the industry turning to social science for guidance and ideological justi? ation. Of course, never for a sec in the three movements of this dialectic is the individual agent a passive voice. Most signi? cantly, for example, the agent interacts with th e industry culture to develop an ideological complex of his own to fend o? the slings and arrows of his work life, which some have apparently done more successfully than others, thus enjoying considerable work satisfaction. There are good reasons to believe that the transmission of the institutional culture is often met y resistance on the part of the individual agent, especially when the culture does not allow for tension release on the one hand and demands considerable commodi? cation of emotions on the other hand. Agents are exhorted to do emotion workto never get back at bad clients and to act nice, think positive. In a sense, this personal ideology grounded in a larger institutional culture serves three functions. First, in a deep psychological sense, it bestows on the agent a social identity that he uses to cope with the stress of his work life.Second, existentially, it provides the agent with a self-justi? cation of his own existence, partly because it has an altruistic dimen sion to it the insurance agent is in the business of doing good, in that the family is looked after by an insurance policy should something disastrous happen to the bread-winner. Third, it also gives the agent a bag of tricks, something useful and practical in his daily encounters with society. Our interview data show rather intelligibly that our agents reported a considerably high level of work satisfaction.They liked their work, had few regrets about their vocational plectron and had rarely thought of quitting life insurance work except during their beginning years in the industry. Some even structured their work with their lifework and hobby became one. work stress among life insurance agents 145 One ? nds at the shopping center of this ideological complex several rather attractive things on o? er handsome monetary rewards a ? ight from the absolutism of the working-class condition and a scream for freedom, occupational autonomy and self-determination in use of time all of which are embodied in the lure of self-employment and entrepreneurship.To some workers in a credential society, these promises prove irresistible because the ful? lment of the Singaporean vision is the preservation of ones great expectations. To perhaps many others, these promises are just that promises. Freedom, free will and self-determination (in use of time according to ones desire) are an illusion. An agent does not e? ectually own his time, nor does he dispose of it according to his own accord. The chasm between proletariat and bourgeoisie remains real and forever self-expanding.Still others learn that this entrepreneurial dream, even when realised, has its dark side. A self-employed person never for a moment stops using his own person, his personality or everything he owns and can rightfully call hishis time, his charm, his tolerance, his love. Having escaped from the tyranny of control by others, he now engages in the ultimate form of exploitation exploitation of self. T he chasm that separates the capitalist from the proletariat is a structural one which is bridgeable by only a few with the right strategic internal and external resources, but which remains a chasm to many.The Singaporean dream is just thata dream. Many agents will be caught in this black-hole-like chasm, between reality and myth, yet never fail to blame themselves for their personal failures. The moment of the ultimate incubus will come when the life insurance industry has found ways to make direct sales to the public, e. g. , through the Internet, or when the public goes direct to the industry, as in the case of medical, house or machine insurance (Neo, 1996). The existence of the agent is thus rendered obsolete because it has lost its value. CHAPTER NINEINSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT AND STRESS APPRAISAL AMONG LIFE INSURANCE AGENTS Gina Lai, Chan Kwok-bun and Ko Yiu-chung Work stress as a social phenomenon and social issue has been of considerable concern to scholars and laypersons ali ke because of its myriad costs to individual workers a? ected and to companies that experience low productivity, absenteeism and turnover (Beehr, 1995 Sutherland &038 Cooper, 1988). For decades, conventional research on work stress has generally perceived individuals as passive actors, making personal adaptations to structural constraints imposed by organisations.Work stress is often seen as a result of an individuals failure in making adjustments to the work environment (e. g. , Beehr, 1995 Loscocco &038 Roschelle, 1991 Lowe &038 Northcott, 1988 Sutherland &038 Cooper, 1988). While studies adopting this view usually examine work stress by identifying the unique sources of stress experienced by particular occupational groups, they tend to overlook the relationship between the institutionalised arrangements of a profession and work stress. The restrictive and normative systems of an industry and profession may well a? ct how an individual worker perceives, appraises and responds to work situationssubsequently in? uencing the level of stress the individual will experience. The present chapter aims to study how the institutionalised arrangements of the life insurance profession and industry in Singapore relate to the types and extent of work stress experienced by its workers. Insurance agents represent a unique group of workers who are both paid employees and entrepreneurs. Data from in-depth interviews with 11 agents working for di? erent life insurance companies provided background information on the norms and rules of the industry.Insurance agents experiences with work stress were analysed using survey data. The information obtained from the interviews, which were conducted prior to the sample survey, enabled our understand of the industry and guided our questionnaire construction. 148 gina lai et al. Definition of Work Stress The term stress has been de? ned in various ways it has been used to refer to demands that require the individual to re-adjust his or her usual behavioural patterns (Holmes &038 Rahe, 1967), or to the state of physiological or emotional arousal that results from the perception of demands (Lazarus &038 Folkman, 1984 Selye, 1974 Thoits, 1995).In this chapter, stress refers to the latter while the former is termed stressor. In the current research belles-lettres (Thoits, 1995), this distinction between stress and stressor is espoused. Stressors manifest themselves in episodic events or situations and are classi? ed in the literature into life events, chronic strains and daily hassles (Thoits, 1995). For an event or situation to be perceived as stressful, two appraisal processes are involved (Lazarus &038 Folkman, 1984). First, the individual appraises the event or situation as threatening to his or her well-being.Events or situations that individuals ? nd threatening often entail potential danger or variety to ones personal identity, social relations, routine behavior, and/or normal corporeal state. Examples incl ude loss of a love one from whom one derives great personal a? rmation and emotional comfort or a serious illness that causes debilitation. Second, the individual feels a need for action. He/she appraises the addressable resources for requisite action but is changeful about the su? ciency or e? ectiveness of resources to successfully carry out the action.When appraising an event or a situation as threatening, the individual, believing that action is needed and feeling that the outcome is uncertain, would experience an emotional reaction called stress (Locke &038 Taylor, 1990). Based on this conceptualization of stress, work stress refers to the emotional solvent to work-related events and situations. Researchers have suggested that stress may be manifested psychologically and physically, as well as behaviorally, and that such manifestations may vary crosswise social groups de? ed by, for example, gender and social class (Pearlin, 1999). The present chapter focuses on the psycho logical aspect of work stress, an emphasis particularly relevant to the study of work stress among insurance agents. Insurance work is indeed emotional work. Selling insurance often assaults ones self due to stigmatisation and rejection by society agents whether each or collectively are constantly forced to make psychological adjustments to and/or manipulations of their hostile work environment. Thus, it institutional context among life insurance agents 49 would be conveyful to investigate how job incumbents in the insurance industry appraise various aspects of their work and evaluate the impacts of such appraisal on their psychological well-being. Adopting a sociological perspective, the present chapter emphasises the social-structural organisation of the industry and its link to individuals experience (Aneshensel, 1992 Pearlin, 1989, 1999 Thoits, 1995). The appraisal of and solution to work-related events and situations are thus argued to be related to the meaning given up to work, which is in? enced by the regulative and normative systems of a profession and industry. The semipolitical Economy of the Life Insurance constancy The most important attractions o? ered by insurance work are its promises of autonomy, potentially high monetary rewards and the prospect of self-employment. Insurance agents are usually given a certain sales target to meet within a period of time if they intend to stay in the company. However, they themselves have to decide on their sales target, set their own work tempo and get their work done wherever and whenever deemed appropriate and e? ctive. To further solicit workers conformance with industry goals, agents are given a share of the industrys pro? tcommissions (Chua, 1971 Neo, 1996). Work is remunerated on the basis of sales and commissions increase as one progresses along a clear and well-de? ned career path. The pace of advancement along the career path is selfdetermined the individual decides how fast he or she wants to move along the career ladder. Individual job performance, in terms of sales volume and ability to keep policies alive, is a requisite for career advancement.Insurance agents thus take on a dual identity. On the one hand, they are employees who follow directives set by the company and work toward organisational goals. On the other hand, they are entrepreneurs who can determine their own career goalswhich more often than not coincide with organisational interestsas well as experiment freely with various modes to achieve these goals. There is, however, a down side to the agents work. While the agents enjoy work autonomy and ? exibility, they also experience sustained pressure to produce (Chan &038 Ko, 1991).Further, life insurance has been and still is a taboo subject for many Singaporeans (Chan &038 Ko, 1991), partly due to the stigma attached to death and 150 gina lai et al. disabilities. Moreover, life insurance is generally perceived as a highrisk investment because of the need fo r considerable semipermanent ? nancial commitment to an unforeseeable future. Coupled with negative stereotypes of insurance work, agents often face rejections by strangers as well as family members and close friends, subsequently breeding personal isolation and alienation.Even worse, agents do not interact with their clients as equals. The balance of power in agent-client transactions is often tilted in favor of the clients. When faced with unreasonable clients, agents are trained and often reminded by their supervisors not to get even for bad client conduct, thus further perpetuating the status imbalance. Paradoxically, having escaped from the control of a boss who has legitimate rights to ones time and labour, one now ? nds himself or herself subject to the control of many other bosses all his real and prospective clients.Further, the rapid growth in the insurance industry in Singapore has bring on acute competitiveness and rivalry between companies as well as among agents, enge ndering a general feeling of distrust, tension and strain in interpersonal relations among peers. green-eyed monster from colleagues and interpersonal con? icts further reenforce individualism and self-isolation. Keen competition also makes it necessary for agents to intensify their labourto self-exploit. operate in such a hostile environment, the life insurance industry has to put up moral and social bu? rs to blow itself against myriad adverse impactsthus the progeny of an institutional ethos and culture as defensive measure mechanisms. As a way to increase agents productivity and to sustain a certain motivational level, the industry periodically gives out awards and medals during conventions and congresses to raise workers morale and motivation (Chan &038 Ko, 1991). A culture of internal cohesiveness and uncouth support is encouraged within individual life insurance companies as well as the industry as a whole.These values not only help the industry achieve its goal of pro ? t-making, but also facilitate the ability of agents to cope with mental and physical a? ictions caused by their work. Description of the Survey The analysis was based on three non-random samples, which yielded a total sample of 400 life insurance workers. First, 500 questionnaires were distributed to the agents by the managers of vi major institutional context among life insurance agents 151 life insurance companies in Singapore.Of these, 212 completed and returned their questionnaires, giving a response rate of 42. 4%. Second, with the help of the monument of the Singapore Life Underwriters Association, questionnaires were disseminated to 400 agents via managers who tended to(p) a series of four talks organised by the Association. This channel saw a return of 137 questionnaires, yielding a response rate of 34. 3%. Third, the deposit distributed 100 questionnaires to insurance managers whom he knew, who in turn handed them out to their own agents.A total of 51 questionnaires were returned this way. The overall response rate for the study was 40%. The non-random nature of the samples and relatively low response rates inevitably lead to a concern about the representativeness of our selected respondents. The relatively low response rate was probably due to the way we sampled our respondents and distributed questionnaires. We distributed the questionnaires to potential respondents through intermediaries (managers of major life insurance companies and the Secretary of the Singapore Life Underwriters Associatio