The Beginning of Stress Reduction: Creating a Code of Conduct for How Team Members Treat Each other

Abstract

Workers and supervisors at the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) have been under high levels of stress for a number of reasons and are under constant pressure to produce more with fewer employees. Under this tension, the daily interpersonal relationships between co-workers and between supervisors and workers have in many cases broken down, eroding trust and respect. Increasingly, communications are non-responsive, negative, or reactive. In an attempt to tap the positive creative energy of workers and supervisors to bring about a less stressful, more productive atmosphere, a facilitated teambuilding exercise has been implemented to develop their own code of personal conduct. “How we treat each other on a daily basis” and “How we want to be treated” are the primary focus of the exercise. The article covers the three aims of the exercise, the structure of, and functions performed by MnDOT, and some of the primary sources of tensions. The three stages of the code exercise are described along with a brief description of each stage. The voluntary nature of the code is stressed as providing a safe way, through peer pressure, openness and a mutual goal for a better work atmosphere, to call attention to code violations.