Work Stress and Coping Among Professionals in Asia

CHAPTER EIGHT

WORK STRESS, WORK SATISFACTION AND COPING AMONG LIFE INSURANCE AGENTS Chan Kwok-Bun The life insurance industry began in England as early as 1756, yet agents as an occupation to sell insurance directly to the public did not appear until 1840, and mostly in the United States (Kessler, 1985, p. 14; Leigh-Bennett, 1936, p. 59). The industry in the United States expanded considerably in the late nineteenth century due to rapid economic growth, urbanisation and popular education; one saw keen competition among companies and agents for the client dollar. Some agents resorted to unfair and sometimes illegal sales tactics that resulted in further public hostility, rejection and distrust of life insurance agents. Such public stigmatisation was recorded in the United States as early as 1870. Zelizer (1983, p. 146) wrote, ‘Illegitimate practices were abolished, codes of ethics were published, professional associations organised and agents better trained. Yet the stigma endured.’ Since its spread to Singapore in 1908 (Neo, 1996, p. 37), the life insurance industry has relied on agents to ‘negotiate the cultural resistance to discussing the proposition of death 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 ‘everyone needs life assurance, but very few people do anything on their own to buy it’. The agent was thus invented to deal with the public’s rejection of life insurance as a concept and as a commodity. In doing this work, agents were given a share of the profit: commissions (Chua, 1971, p. 42; Neo, 1996, p. 38). Hundreds of workers were lured into the life insurance industry by the attractive prospect of self-employment and its promise of work autonomy and potentially high monetary rewards—a sort of flight away from the wage-earning class. To say that the work of a life insurance agent is stressful is perhaps an understatement. The fact was well documented in a 1990 survey of six groups of 2,589 workers in Singapore, life insurance

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agents included (see Chapter 10). The survey found two major sources of work stress. One source was performance pressure. The professional workers may have internalised a strong need for job achievement and maintenance of professional standards, which are values often held high by many formal organisations as well as the government. The stress of performance pressure may also be a result of Singapore’s economic growth. As Hing (1991, 1992) suggests in Chapter 3, globalisation of the Singapore economy has driven workers to strive for personal and company success—which may bring considerable stress to the workers. Another important source of work stress was workfamily conflicts—a finding consistent with those of recent overseas studies (Coverman, 1989; Lai, 1995; Simon, 1992; Thoits, 1986). This essay attempts to identify and analyse stressors associated with the work of life insurance agents, as well as coping strategies adopted by the life insurance industry in general and the agents in particular. The study on which this essay is based analysed transcripts of in-depth interviews conducted in 1990 with 15 life insurance agents and subsequently in 1998–1999 with 15 agents and informants. Each interview lasted between one and a half and two hours. The respondents ranged from 23 to 42 years in age; 17 men, 13 women. Only five of the 30 respondents were university graduates or diploma holders; the rest were graduates of secondary schools, except for three who had completed ‘0’ or ‘A’ Level. Slightly more than half (18) were married. Drafts of this chapter were given to five other life insurance agents (one retired) to read. One agent provided the researchers with extensive written comments; each of the other four was interviewed twice for feedback on the essay’s various drafts. This research strategy, though laborious and time-consuming, posed critical and reflective questions that required the analysts to periodically confront their qualitative data in the form of ‘reality-testing’—indeed a useful step in an interpretive study like ours. As a methodological device, this triangulation of respondents/informants, researchers and ‘critics’, when intentionally built into the research process, forces the researcher(s) to be doubly reflective. A step is thus institutionalised that requires the researcher to come to terms with biases or blind spots about which others within the triangle are in a legitimate position to ‘complain’. There are two ways to define stress. One denotes external demands which require the individual to readjust his or her usual behaviour patterns (Holmes and Rahe 1967). In this chapter, these demands

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are called ‘stressors’ or ‘stressor factors’, and the readjustment is referred to as ‘coping’. The other way of conceptualising stress is to view it as a state of physiological or emotional arousal that results from one’s appraisal of the relationship between the person and the environment ‘as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being’ (Chan, 1977; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p. 21; Selye, 1974; Thoits, 1995). In this chapter, when the term ‘stress’ is used, it is meant in the second sense, to be distinguished from the other two terms, ‘stressor’ and ‘coping’. Work Stressors The life insurance agents believe that Singapore society in general does not have a favourable image of them. Agents are subjected to such derogatory stereotypes as nagging, dishonest, intent on making money fast, manipulative and unethical—basically, people society would like to reject and to shun. In Singapore, life insurance agents are often seen as among occupants of the lowest stratum in the sales business, possibly below the car salespersons and at best slightly better than a sales clerk in a departmental store. Agents are seen as a category of persons out there selling life insurance policies to ‘eat up people’s money’, sometimes unscrupulously. Victimised by stereotypes, an agent is deprived of an opportunity to defend his or her self as a person—an individual making a living like everybody else:
As you know, ‘life insurance’ is not a nice word to utter. We get a lot of rejections, ‘brush-offs’, and nasty looks by people—all these can cause us to have a very low self-image. . . . When I was very new, and when I was still doing a lot of selling, I got a lot of rejections. You notice that you have reached a dead-end because you have tried so hard to reach your sales target but you simply cannot. (1)1

These personal experiences with rejections by clients are frequent enough to have become part and parcel of the job itself; they must be among the more deleterious work stressors for the agents. To some if not all agents, rejections—taking such forms as not listening, not returning telephone calls, failing to keep an appointment or

1 The number in the bracket identifies the respondents of our study. See Table 1 for their personal characteristics.

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Table 1: Personal Characteristics of Respondents (N = 30) Education Secondary School Graduate = S ‘A’ Level = ‘A’ ‘0’ = ‘0’ Age University or Diploma = U or D

Marital Status Sex (Married = M; (Male = M; Number Single = S) Female = F)

1 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

simply not giving one, or deciding at the last minute not to purchase a policy—invariably provide an evidential and experiential validation of society’s low image as well as disrespect of the occupation of life insurance agents. Agents reported childhood friends and relatives avoiding and labelling them as ‘pests’ and ‘man-eaters’. Some made specific requests

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that no talk about life insurance be allowed in friendly social gatherings lest they risk discontinuation of friendships and relationships. Beginners in life insurance sales typically approach these same people within their own close personal networks to meet their quota in the first one or two years, usually quite successfully. Yet, over-reliance on this personal network quickly exhausts its inherently limited potential. On the dark side, rejections by those who are socio-emotionally close, and are therefore supposedly ‘obliged’ to help out because of friendship or family and kin membership, are often experienced by the beginning agents as particularly traumatic. Some agents thus feel let down, betrayed and cheated—these feelings sometimes result in agents slowly divorcing themselves from others socially and emotionally close to them, thus breeding personal isolation and alienation. Parents, relatives and friends are often upset when a young university graduate chooses to be a life insurance agent. Without a basic monthly salary to fall back on, the agents’ income comes entirely from sales commissions, which are often seen by parents as unreliable and risky. Parents expect a university degree, itself a considerable achievement in the Singapore society, to lead to a reasonably attractive salary from a stable, secure, respected job. The idea of an agent going for months without pay for not being able to sell a single policy is either foreign or unacceptable to parents of an earlier generation. This effectively makes the agents outsiders to their close personal networks. The very nature of the life insurance agents’ job lies in dealing with people and prospective clients, many of whom they meet for the first time as strangers in probably the most unlikely places and hours (often subjected to the desires and whims of the clients). Much of the stress and strain experienced by the agents thus lies in their transactions and negotiations with strangers—with the unknown, unfamiliar and unpredictable. Yet, the probability is quite high that these same strangers will hold an unfavourable stereotypical image of agents as a category, thus sometimes mistreating and denigrating them. The agents, in their encounters with strangers, have to manage an instant spoiled 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 speak. Agents do not interact with their clients as equals. The balance of power in agent-client transactions is often tilted in favour of the clients. This status inequality, a source of intense discomfort, anxiety

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and sometimes alienation for many agents, is often exploited, if not abused, by the clients. The agents, when asked to recall a specific experience or situation at work when they felt depressed or frustrated, would quite freely describe what constitutes a ‘bad’ client:
Some clients are quite unreasonable, and they affect our morale considerably. What is being unreasonable? They try every possible means to reject you. They will tell you they are busy and ask you to come another day, or they will ask you for an appointment but when you show up they will say they are busy and ask you to come on yet another day! (10)

Yet, agents are trained and often reminded by their supervisors 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 tension release ‘to get even’ with the ‘other’, thus further aggravating the built-in status inequality of the agentclient relations. This inability of agents to express the feelings of frustration, anger and displeasure that are generated by unpleasant encounters with ‘bad’ clients may prove to be doubly degrading to some agents. It perpetuates the status imbalance and is of considerable psychological costs to the agents. While much of work stress among a wide range of professional groups is often attributed to sheer work overload, some life insurance agents reported having too much time on their hands at work as a stressor. As one agent put it, ‘When I am most free, I am most stressed.’ Having plenty of time means one is not being productive— ideally, one should be kept busy. Having little or no work for weeks or even months generates anxiety, for insurance work relies exclusively on commissions from selling policies. Largely unstructured, insurance work gives the agents much personal freedom and autonomy; yet this same job characteristic requires skills to structure and use time to one’s advantage. Given the unstructured and undefined nature of an agent’s work, difficulties experienced in dealing with either plenty of time or little time were often reported by the agents as stressors. One important way the agents define stress is in terms of sustained pressure to produce, to meet the yearly quota of sales, which is invariably enacted by their bosses’ ‘nagging’:
Once in a while, my boss will remind us to pull up our socks. (6)

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A ‘bad’ boss, as seen by the agents, is someone solely interested in pushing for a certain level of sales productivity in a given year, yet not showing enough care and support. It was reported that one insurance company regularly sends ‘gentle reminders’ to those agents not doing well, thus adding to the pressure. As a way to increase agents’ productivity and to sustain a motivational level, the life insurance industry has institutionalised the practice of publishing regular bulletins which, among other things, rank the ‘top super achievers’ by detailing their total volumes of sales by month and year. One agent reported that her company sends each agent every month a progress report which is seen by the agents as one form of assessment and feedback from the administration. Every quarter of the year, the unit manager and the agent will meet to review the latter’s sales performance. As the agent herself put it, ‘Such meetings can make me feel good when sales meet the set quota, or the experience will be quite embarrassing if I don’t do well.’ It was reported by another agent that the leader of her agency organises the agents into several work groups and gives out awards to the topachieving group every now 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 industry, as measured both by the actual number of insurance companies and by the number of full-time and parttime life insurance agents. These agents are competing with each other for more or less the same client market, which by and large still views the concept of life insurance with disinterest. The net result of this rapid growth in the industry is increased competitiveness and rivalry between companies. Theoretically, the client market is an open one, often seen by some relatively successful agents as unlimited—‘the sky is the limit’, so to speak. Yet, in actual day-to-day practice, it was reported by agents that they often ran into direct competition with each other. Reports were made about unethical practices of agents who resorted to substantially reduced insurance rates to ‘undercut’ competitors. Yet others, in order to maintain a certain level of yearly sales productivity, were forced to pay out of their own pockets premiums not paid up by their clients, thus sometimes getting themselves into considerable debts. Acute competitiveness and rivalry between agents/colleagues thus possibly engenders a general feeling of distrust, tension and

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strain in interpersonal relations among peers. Competition and conflict generate barriers of communication, undermine collegiality and, if left unmanaged, breed individualism and self-isolation. The more successful agents arouse jealousy from others and are thus shunned. The not so successful ones find others critical and condescending, and would thus choose not to confide in them. The competitiveness of the client market demands considerable work commitment, effort and mental concentration of the life insurance agents which, in reality, may or may not translate themselves into actual sales, especially for the beginners just initiated into the industry. Agents complained about having to work long, 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 seeing you, you have little option but to go. You may not be that free since many people own chunks of your time. You are beholden to many people, all your clients, real 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’, everybody’s. (20)

Many perhaps choose to be a life insurance agent thinking the job approximates self-employment and thus offers the capacity to control one’s use of time to serve one’s interest. Yet, paradoxically, having escaped the tyranny of control by a boss who has legitimate rights to his time, the agent soon realises he has lost his control of time to many other bosses: all his clients, real and prospective. If professional autonomy is partially measured by one’s control over time, an agent may soon be in a shock of his life. A worker who cannot claim ownership of time is a stressed agent. Much of an agent’s work is done outside his or her own office, travelling on the road between appointments, in client’s offices or any other place clients deem appropriate or convenient to themselves. This seemingly perpetual mobility of the ‘on-the-road agenttraveller’, in a substantial way, makes the work of a life insurance agent an essentially lonely one. The agent becomes a lone ranger exploiting the frontier and eking out a daily routine of negotiating with strangers, much of the time facing a social world of unfriendly, if not hostile and aggressive forces. The very nature of an agent’s work in terms of long, irregular hours as well as an ‘unsocial’ work routine necessarily casts him or her out of the mainstream society.

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An agent’s life is largely out of sync with the normal tempo of his or her family, relatives and friends. This temporal and spatial disparity between the agent and his or her social world has over time become a potent source of strain manifested in various forms of interpersonal conflicts. These tensions in interpersonal relations are particularly taxing among two groups of agents: first, 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, mother and full-time agent. Women agents are sometimes seen by their male colleagues as perhaps a bit too aggressive, or too driven, working too hard, putting in too many long hours while competing with other male agents in an already tight market. One single woman spoke about how the long, irregular hours she has been keeping for almost two years led to conflicts and fights with her boyfriend and the eventual break-up of a close relationship. Parents worry about their young daughters’ safety and well-being; they are concerned that young single women meeting with total strangers for business, in unlikely places at inappropriate hours. Other parents do not like the thought that their daughters are so preoccupied with work that they do not have time to look for or see boyfriends. A married woman, determined to become a unit manager in three years, spoke about the difficulties encountered in effectively discharging her role as a mother to two young children, sometimes feeling remorseful over releasing her work frustrations on them. Another single woman, finding the Singapore market too competitive, resorted to concentrating her efforts in Indonesia; and she spoke about societal pressures on single women in terms of work, career and achievement. Two agents had become, over the years, increasingly aware that they had been pursuing their work goals almost at the total expense of their family, often to the extent of coming home so tensed up that they were incapable 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, while selfdivorcing and self-isolating from their family, have engineered and completed their own disengagement from their social world, which itself may breed various forms of marital as well as familial conflicts. As a result, work stress and family stress become intertwined, each feeding into the other—up to a point when the agent is at a loss

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as to which is the ‘cause’ and which is the ‘effect’. Yet, ironically, the agent continues to believe in the uniqueness of his or her own work problems, 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 solution—a perception 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 one’s social environment, be it one’s work colleagues or one’s family members and friends, is this tendency, in solitude, to blame oneself, to blame one’s 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 agent who takes all the blame upon oneself is a stressed agent. Coping During our interviews, in describing their ways of coping with work stress, life insurance agents often underlined the importance of three personal qualities: self-reliance, motivation and discipline. A largely unstructured work life demands self-discipline in terms of an ability to effectively manage and use time in a context 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 agent’s work life often means that one needs to rely on one’s own ‘internal’ resources to motivate and initiate oneself. During their training, agents learn from their trainers’ exhortations about the critical significance 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, affixed to the wall of her office facing her desk ‘power’ messages stressing discipline and self-reliance—messages which served as a daily reminder to her. Her cabinet along another wall was filled with layers of ‘inspirational’ and ‘how-to’ books and cassette tapes dealing with such subjects as time management, self-improvement and stress control. She actually reported during an interview that one of those books ‘totally’ changed her life; she recommended anyone aspiring to become successful in life to read it, many times over. Another young male manager grumbled about his office having only limited space while

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almost one entire wall was taken up by shelves filled with motivational and inspirational cassette tapes from America. He remarked that there is a real demand for such materials among the young executive staff in the Singapore business world. Insurance companies routinely mount in-house training workshops or courses offering agents opportunities to ‘refresh’ their ideas on motivation and self discipline. Trainers or consultants from within the industry, the universities and overseas are also brought in regularly 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 agency, 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 issues, the agency leader shared in her front page message a book she had recently read: The Successful System that Never Fails (1962), by Clement Stone. The same issue carried another article showing a woman agent as a ‘goal getter’, stating, ‘She has a very disciplined system to monitor her daily 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 tide wait for no man. Plan and do it now.’ On the second to last page of the bulletin, among the agenda items for a forthcoming agency meeting, it listed a discussion of a book, Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill (1996). Agents also share a strong belief in personal control. Personal control is understood here as values, abilities and behaviours to manage and master oneself effectively, including one’s time, habits, perceptions, thought processes, feelings and emotions, or, to put it briefly, self-mastery.
The ability to cope with stress depends a lot on your personality and your own psychological state of mind. Sometimes people amplify the stress situation and make themselves even more stressed. If we are able to control our mind, it’s very much better. (12) Our problem is our mind. If we ourselves are negative, that is our end. We need to think on the positive. We work to help pick up those who are ‘down’. (11)

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In another monthly bulletin, an entire poem, ‘A Note of Motivation’, from a speaker during one of the regular agency meetings, was reprinted. The poem ended with these lines: ‘Life battles don’t always 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 belief in personal control is the value of hard work, the belief that hard work will bring results, that there is a connection between efforts 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 effective strategy to cope with work stress. In this context, work, rather than relaxations or rest, is prescribed as an antidote, a remedy or solution to stress or so-called ‘mental and physical afflictions’. Such a work ethic also 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 slump’. The emphasis is thus on one’s resilience and hardiness, or belief in personal control over work as well as one’s ability to bounce back and recover quickly from ‘the hidden injuries of life’:
After a while, I sit back and evaluate my own performance. I’ve learned to think this way: ‘You are not considered a failure if you can pick yourself up and carry on with what you are doing.’ (1)

To the agents, strategies of coping also include a sample of various psychological defence mechanisms; there is evidence 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 rather, 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 responsible to himself and his family. The problem lies in him, not me! I have done my best and I’ll keep on trying to convince him. But for cases that give me direct rejection, I’ll throw them away because there is no point keeping them on my mind. It’ll be very stressful (laugh). (14)

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Agents are also trained to accept rejections as a predictable, builtin part of a life insurance agent’s work. With experience, most agents would have learned to develop an attitude of acceptance:
We took a course in psychology. From there we learned how to accept things as they come along. Basically, I’m a happy-go-lucky person. I’ll always find a way out for myself. I don’t normally reproach myself unnecessarily. (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 good things and agents should indeed be happy about them:
My boss always tells me that insurance is very difficult 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 good, so the agent is talked (or, talking himself ) into seeing rejections as a good 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 through training and experience to acquire the appropriate resources, skills and values so that, once they are internalised, they become part of the person and can be used in day-to-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 one’s self, one’s resources and skills. Such a personfocussed, skill-oriented concept of coping is accentuated by a general disinclination on the part of most agents (except a few) to seek and use help, support and care from the family for problem-solving or emotional support:
It is very difficult to get help from my family. (10) There is nothing much they can do about it. They won’t understand. (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)

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The married male agents were quite specific about keeping work and family life separate, not wanting work problems and frustrations to spill over into the domestic 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 bother to communicate with their spouses about problems and frustrations experienced at work; they cite reasons such as ‘not wanting to give them headaches’, ‘spouse not understanding 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 culture’. Another agent rationalised to himself that the important thing to do ‘to keep the right 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 social, 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 ways. 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 find a colleague for a chit-chat. Is this method effective? It is nice that peers encourage and support each other. In general, you would want to discuss with the more experienced peers—they will give you a few ideas—point 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 release your pent-up emotions or depressed feelings. That way, you will feel much better. (10) When I am stressed or frustrated, I immediately 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 only—they become more normal, less serious. I always look to my more experienced colleagues—they are more likely and able to help. (15)

To help create and sustain the notion of the agency as a ‘large family’, agency bulletins regularly print greetings to welcome newcomers as well as birthday messages to agency members. The intent is

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to impress 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 supervisors for ‘problem-solving’ guidance and advice, they also exercised considerable caution in such interaction for fear of unwittingly revealing personal weaknesses, inadequacies and vulnerabilities. In practice, there are two inter-related parts to the relationship between the agent and his or her agency/company represented by a supervisor-manager: supervision and training. The agent receives supervision of varying degrees from the manager, who negotiates the kind of continuous training required to either maintain the status quo or to improve one’s sales volume. This often means customising a training programme to fit the needs of an agent in a particular stage of career development, which invariably change relative to their clients and their needs. As the life insurance industry continues to innovate by creating and introducing new products and new services, the agent finds it obligatory to learn new skills—both in the ‘software’ (e.g., new ways to motivate self and client) and in the ‘hardware’ (e.g., legal and administrative aspects of a new product). The agent needs training, and the industry finds 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 and parcel of a collectivised coping strategy. All except one or two of the agents seemed quite clear 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 effective 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 off temporarily’. For at least two agents, the mere knowledge that their spouses will be supportive when their help and care are needed 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 workplace, the agents have also learned to be selective and discretionary in deciding who is to

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be approached for what problems and towards what ends. The ‘culture’ of the support system at the workplace is thus accessed and used by the agents with discretion, 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 individual’s social embedment in the larger ‘system’ and ‘culture’ of the industry would make a difference in one’s coping process and strategy. The more socially embedded, the more effective in coping—partly because one is now receiving social support and partly because one has learned ‘the tricks of the trade’ through one’s 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. Indeed, 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 skilled and re-skilled by the system and its knowledge to cope with oneself and a hostile social world—thus the constant reference to the social sciences, 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 one’s depression or mood swings) as well as instrumentally (it is useful to know 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 faced a wide range of stressors in their daily work, many of which demanded various modes

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of coping and adaptation, they also reported a considerably high level of work satisfaction. Formerly construction engineers, computer programmers, factory 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 immediate 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 first two years of initiation. Several agents in fact seemed to have derived so much satisfaction from their work that they reported that their job had long become their hobby; work and hobby were indistinguishable and had in fact become one. Several agents took pains 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’ perceived sense of control over their work as a result of the freedom, autonomy and independence an agent’s work provides. In a significant way, an agent is essentially his or her own boss, answerable and accountable mainly to oneself (thus largely dependent on one’s own personal resources such as initiative, self-discipline, self-reliance and motivation). An agent is self-employed, and his or her work has the potential of developing into an entrepreneur’s business where, at least in one’s mind, the results are a direct function of effort and hard work. Moreover, one derives much satisfaction from being able to generate profit for oneself, rather than for a company as is the case for salaried employees. Indeed, several agents reported that they had quit their former job and joined the life insurance business precisely because it offers the potential attraction of self-employment and entrepreneurship:
I had this wish to do my own work and be my own boss. It just happened that insurance offered 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 qualifications 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 average of three to four thousand Singapore dollars per month, while

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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 seven 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 figures 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 recognition a successful agent received as a potent source of work satisfaction. When successful (as indicated by insurance sales figures and the subsequent recognition and appreciation received from colleagues, company and friends), an agent has finally 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 due. Insurance agents spoke about the gratification they derived from having sold a policy where the financial 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, offers good pay, a clear and well-defined 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 fifteen years excites and motivates many a high achiever. In the process of plodding through one’s career path, the individual gets his or her own rewards in accordance with ‘the goals set and effort exerted’. And so it seems.

work stress among life insurance agents Conclusion

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Singapore society rejects the idea as well as the product of life insurance, which is the ‘first movement’ of the dialectic 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 me—a process that entails considerable psychological costs to the individual agents. Nevertheless, the life insurance industry employs agents and trains them to diffuse such societal rejections, oftentimes striving to turn such hostility around. As it happens, the agents are assigned a stigma by society, a Goffmanian 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 analysis posits that societal rejection of life insurance as an idea and the stigma attached to life insurance agents are as much structural givens as they are historical conditions, or what the Durkheimian sociologist calls ‘social facts’ which the individual agents cannot easily ‘wish away’. The ‘third movement’ begins when the life insurance industry in general, and the agents in particular, attempt to cope with the stigma by developing an institutional culture over time; an ideological complex of values and beliefs—or, ‘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 bottom up. A structural problem requires at the least a collective solution. Through seminars, workshops, conventions and pep-talks, the industry instils in the individual agents a ‘bag of tricks’. These include values and beliefs such as hard work, self-efficacy, self-reliance and discipline; work habits (keeping accounts and making regular cold calls); procedures for dealing with prospective clients; and a battery of coping strategies and defence mechanisms such as positive thinking (the cup is half full, not half empty), cognitive alteration or conversion (it is your loss, not mine, for not buying insurance from me), hiding and

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compartmentalising (I make sure my family doesn’t know anything about my work problems), talking oneself into believing ‘doing good for others’ (everyone needs an insurance policy; it never rains but pours), accepting the inevitable, and so on. Our analyses have indicated the infiltration of academic psychology into the articulation and justification of such an ideological complex. To illustrate, Seligman’s learned optimism concept (1990), Kobasa’s idea of psychological hardiness (Kobasa & 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 justification. Of course, never for a moment in the three movements of this dialectic is the individual agent a passive voice. Most significantly, for example, the agent interacts with the industry culture to develop an ideological complex of his own to fend off 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 by 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 commodification of emotions on the other hand. Agents are exhorted to do emotion work—to ‘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-justification of his own existence, partly because it has an altruistic dimension 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 clearly that our agents reported a considerably high level of work satisfaction. They liked their work, had few regrets about their vocational choice and had rarely thought of quitting life insurance work except during their beginning years in the industry. Some even merged their work with their life—work and hobby became one.

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One finds at the core of this ideological complex several rather attractive things on offer: handsome monetary rewards; a flight from the tyranny of the working-class condition; and a promise 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 fulfilment of the Singaporean dream is the deliverance of one’s great expectations. To perhaps many others, these promises are just that: promises. Freedom, free will and self-determination (in use of time according to one’s desire) are an illusion. An agent does not effectually 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 his—his 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. The 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 that—a 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 nightmare 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 automobile insurance (Neo, 1996). The existence of the agent is thus rendered obsolete because it has lost its value.

CHAPTER NINE

INSTITUTIONAL 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 alike because of its myriad costs to individual workers affected and to companies that experience low productivity, absenteeism and turnover (Beehr, 1995; Sutherland & 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 individual’s failure in making adjustments to the work environment (e.g., Beehr, 1995; Loscocco & Roschelle, 1991; Lowe & Northcott, 1988; Sutherland & 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 regulative and normative systems of an industry and profession may well affect how an individual worker perceives, appraises and responds to work situations—subsequently influencing 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 different 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 understanding of the industry and guided our questionnaire construction.

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gina lai et al. Definition of Work Stress

The term ‘stress’ has been defined 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 & Rahe, 1967), or to the state of physiological or emotional arousal that results from the perception of demands (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Selye, 1974; Thoits, 1995). In this chapter, ‘stress’ refers to the latter while the former is termed ‘stressor’. In the current research literature (Thoits, 1995), this distinction between stress and stressor is espoused. Stressors manifest themselves in episodic events or situations and are classified 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 & Folkman, 1984). First, the individual appraises the event or situation as threatening to his or her well-being. Events or situations that individuals find threatening often entail potential danger or alteration to one’s personal identity, social relations, routine behavior, and/or normal physical state. Examples include loss of a loved one from whom one derives great personal affirmation and emotional comfort or a serious illness that causes debilitation. Second, the individual feels a need for action. He/she appraises the available resources for requisite action but is uncertain about the sufficiency or effectiveness 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 & Taylor, 1990). Based on this conceptualisation of stress, ‘work stress’ refers to the emotional response 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 across social groups defined by, for example, gender and social class (Pearlin, 1999). The present chapter focuses on the psychological 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 one’s self due to stigmatisation and rejection by society; agents whether individually or collectively are constantly forced to make psychological adjustments to and/or manipulations of their hostile work environment. Thus, it

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would be meaningful 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 response to work-related events and situations are thus argued to be related to the meaning attached to work, which is influenced by the regulative and normative systems of a profession and industry. The Political Economy of the Life Insurance Industry The most important attractions offered 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 effective. To further solicit workers’ compliance with industry goals, agents are given a share of the industry’s profit—commissions (Chua, 1971; Neo, 1996). Work is remunerated on the basis of sales; and commissions increase as one progresses along a clear and well-defined 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 goals—which more often than not coincide with organisational interests—as 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 flexibility, they also experience sustained pressure to produce (Chan & Ko, 1991). Further, life insurance has been and still is a taboo subject for many Singaporeans (Chan & Ko, 1991), partly due to the stigma attached to death and

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disabilities. Moreover, life insurance is generally perceived as a highrisk investment because of the need for considerable long-term financial 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 one’s time and labour, one now finds 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 induced acute competitiveness and rivalry between companies as well as among agents, engendering a general feeling of distrust, tension and strain in interpersonal relations among peers. Jealousy from colleagues and interpersonal conflicts further reinforce individualism and self-isolation. Keen competition also makes it necessary for agents to intensify their labour—to self-exploit. Operating in such a hostile environment, the life insurance industry has to put up moral and social buffers to cushion itself against myriad adverse impacts—thus the emergence of an institutional ethos and culture as defense 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 & Ko, 1991). A culture of internal cohesiveness and mutual 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 profit-making, but also facilitate the ability of agents to cope with mental and physical afflictions 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 six major

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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 Secretary of the Singapore Life Underwriters Association, questionnaires were disseminated to 400 agents via managers who attended 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 Secretary 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 Association). As we did not have direct contact with potential respondents, it was difficult for us to follow up with individuals who did not return the questionnaire. However, the low response rate does not necessarily reduce the representativeness of the sample. Profiles of population attributes provided by the Life Insurance Association of Singapore 1990 (personal communication) indicate that our sample was generally representative of the population proper in terms of gender, ethnicity, marital status and industry experience. Compared to the population, our sample respondents tended to be younger and less educated, but the differences were slight. These would be taken into consideration whilst interpreting the results. Table 1 presents the demographic characteristics of the respondents. The gender ratio (men to women) of the sample was about 2:1. An overwhelming majority of the respondents were Chinese (95%). Slightly more than half of the respondents were married and more than one-third had attained an education at the tertiary level (diploma or above). The average age of the sample was about 31. The respondents were relatively new to their organisation and job position. The median years of working in the organisation and at the position were 2.5 and 2, respectively. In sum, our insurance agents were a group of relatively well-educated and young workers, many of whom were at the initial stage of their careers in the life insurance industry.

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Table 1: Demographic Characteristics of the Study Sample of 400 Life Insurance Agents

Demographic Characteristics Gender (N = 399)* Men Women Ethnicity (N = 396) Chinese Marital Status (N = 315) Married Single Other Education (N = 397) Secondary 4 or below GCE ‘0’ level GCE ‘A’ level Diploma or equivalent Degree or equivalent Higher degree level Age (mean year) (N = 395) Years of working in the organization (median) (N = 399) Years of working at current position (median) (N = 312)
* The valid sample size for the respective variable is in parentheses.

66.00% 34.00% 95.00% 53.25% 44.00% 2.75% 11.60% 34.30% 19.40% 21.20% 12.10% 1.50% 31.35 2.50 2.00

In the survey, a list of 51 work-related situations was presented and respondents were asked to indicate whether or not they had experienced those situations and, if so, the level of stress they experienced. The compilation of these 51 situations was based on results from 11 in-depth interviews, in which respondents identified and commented on events and situations they encountered at work. A wide range of situations was identified: interpersonal relations, job pressures, organisational constraints and interface with other aspects of life. The level of stress was measured by a five-point scale: (0) not a source of stress, (1) slight stress, (2) moderate stress, (3) considerable stress and (4) extreme stress. This five-point scale was also applied to a summary stress measure, which was designed to gauge the overall level of work stress in the six months prior to the survey.

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Psychological consequences were operationalised in terms of job satisfaction and mental health. For job satisfaction, respondents were asked to indicate the level of agreement to six statements which expressed a positive evaluation of one’s job as well as intention to remain in the job. A composite score was constructed to reflect the extent of satisfaction with one’s job, with possible values ranging from 6 (lowest satisfaction level) to 42 (highest satisfaction level). Mental health refers to a state of psychological well-being, which was measured one month prior to the survey, by a count of 12 psychological conditions experienced as worse as or much worse than usual. The 12 psychological conditions deal with symptoms related to anxiety and depression, such as restless sleep, depressed mood and sense of worthlessness. Reliability tests showed reasonable alpha values for the above two scales (0.60 for job satisfaction and 0.89 for mental health). The analysis of work stress and its psychological consequences among life insurance agents was performed in two steps. First, the extent of work stress among insurance agents was examined. Second, the relationships between work stress and the two psychological consequences were investigated. As the data came from a non-random sample, statistical findings were primarily suggestive; caution should be exercised before generalizing the results to the larger population of insurance agents. The Experience of Work Stress To understand the experience of work stress among life insurance agents, the ratings of the overall work stress level and of stress associated with the 51 work-related situations were examined. A work situation is stressful if the respondent has experienced it and perceives it to be stressful. A situation is not stressful for the respondent if he or she has not experienced it or does not perceive the experience to be stressful.

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Table 2: Mean Stress Level of Work-Related Events/Situations*—Results Based on 400 Life Insurance Agents Rank Work-Related Events/Situations 1 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 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Time pressures and deadlines to meet Having to work continually to achieve self-set target Dealing with demanding or difficult clients/prospects My work is mentally straining Having to make cold calls Not having been able to manage time well Fear of making mistakes that can lead to serious consequences Being rejected by clients/prospects Work overload Unethical practices of some insurance agents My boss pressures me to meet my quota Effort and time do not always pay off Work delayed by unnecessary red tape Having to work hard to maintain good PR with clients Advancing a career at the expense of home/personal life Society does not think highly of my profession Work demands affect my home/personal life Feeling let down by friends not buying policy from me My job requires considerable independence & self-discipline Lack of promotion prospects My life is too centered on my work Feeling insecure in this job Too much administrative work or paperwork Under pressure to do things against my professional ethics Insufficient resources & facilities to get work done Work underload Working with uncooperative colleagues Unable to make full use of my skills and ability Trained to be nice to clients, even the difficult ones Inadequate time for professional and self development People avoid me and do not know how to deal with me Feeling of self-isolation and loneliness Working with incompetent colleagues Cannot participate in decision-making Feeling not sure whether this job is right for me Feeling of being underpaid Lack of authority to carry out my job duties Having to do work outside of my competence Having to do unnecessary task or project Absence of emotional support from family Lack of support from superior High staff turnover Mean 1.90 1.71 1.43 1.36 1.35 1.35 1.33 1.30 1.26 1.25 1.17 1.14 1.13 1.12 1.09 1.08 1.08 1.05 1.03 1.02 0.99 0.98 0.97 0.96 0.92 0.91 0.89 0.88 0.88 0.87 0.86 0.85 0.83 0.81 0.79 0.78 0.76 0.74 0.73 0.72 0.71 0.71

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Table 2 (cont.) Rank Work-Related Events/Situations 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 My beliefs contradict with those of my superior Unfair assessment from superior Discrimination and favouritism Relationship problems with colleagues/subordinates Cannot share problems with colleagues—will reveal weakness Jealousy and competition among colleagues Difficult to distance myself from my clients Difficulty in maintaining relationship with superior Family objects to my working as an insurance agent

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Mean 0.70 0.70 0.70 0.69 0.66 0.65 0.62 0.58 0.53 1.81

Overall work stress
* Not experiencing the event/situation was coded as “0.”

Results of our analysis showed that our respondents scored an average of 1.81 for overall stress, suggesting a slight to moderate stress level. Among the 51 work-related situations on the checklist, about four-fifths of them (39) had been experienced by at least 70% of the respondents. Thus, the list provides a valid indication of our insurance agents’ experiences with work stress. Of the 51 situations, the most common was ‘dealing with demanding or difficult clients/prospects’ (96.3% of the respondents) whereas the least common was ‘family objects to my working as an insurance agent’ (55%). While a majority of the respondents had experienced the listed situations, the stress levels associated with them were generally perceived to be less than moderate, which was consistent with the finding on overall work stress (Table 2). These results can perhaps be explained in two ways. First, the insurance agents in our sample may possess considerable personality resistance resources such as self-esteem and psychological hardiness that allow them to withstand hardships arising from the job. Psychological hardiness as a personality construct taps three personality characteristics: commitment (to work/profession), the tendency to appraise demands as challenging rather than threatening, and having a sense of control over one’s fate (Kobasa, 1979). Second, the instrumental and emotional help provided by the formal and informal support networks within the company may help the agents better handle difficult situations related to the job, thus reducing the level of work stress (Chan, 1997; Chan & Ko, 1991).

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An examination of the stress ratings for individual work-related situations revealed four notable findings. First, the most stressful situations (the top ten) were primarily related to one’s survival in the business and achievement of career goals. For example, five out of the top ten stressors directly concerned themselves with work demands, which included ‘time pressures and deadlines to meet,’ ‘having to work continually to achieve self-set target,’ ‘my work is mentally straining,’ ‘not having been able to manage time well,’ and ‘workoverload’. ‘Dealing with demanding or difficult clients/prospects’ and ‘being rejected by clients/prospects’ were perceived as stressful because they not only threatened one’s self-esteem, but also implied difficulty in achieving sales goals. ‘Having to make cold calls’ represented one’s self-initiated effort to increase the sales volume. ‘Fear of making mistakes that can lead to serious consequences’ and ‘unethical practices of some insurance agents’ were related to the maintenance of the professional image of insurance agents in society, which would presumably contribute to the success of their business. Second, relations with superiors and colleagues constituted sources of least stress to the insurance agents. Among the ten situations rated as least stressful, six of them entailed conflicts with superiors and colleagues, particularly those related to work performance and rewards. These situations included ‘my beliefs contradict those of my superiors,’ ‘unfair assessment from superiors,’ ‘discrimination and favouritism,’ ‘relationship problems with colleagues/subordinates,’ ‘cannot share problems with colleagues,’ ‘jealousy and competition among colleagues’ and ‘difficulty in maintaining relationships with superiors’. The low level of stress associated with interpersonal relationships might probably be due to the emphasis of the industry on building social cohesion among the insurance personnel. In addition, the assessment criteria of work performance are relatively objective and clear in the life insurance industry, leading to few disputes with superiors and among colleagues. Third, although insurance agents were working within a larger organisation setting, they did not perceive the bureaucracy as a source of great stress. Our respondents reported slight stress in their encounters with bureaucracy, such as red tape, paperwork or lack of job authority and resources to get the work done. This finding suggested that while insurance agents, as company employees, were working under certain organisational constraints, the relative autonomy and

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flexibility they enjoyed seemed to outweigh the constraints. This may be due to the unique work arrangements and ethos of the life insurance industry. Fourth, our survey data provided some support for the observation that the interface between work and family has been found to be a source of stress among workers (Bromet, Dew & Parkinson, 1990; Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Two items related to work-family interface: ‘advancing a career at the expense of home/personal life’ and ‘work demands affect my home/personal life’. These were ranked among the 20 most stressful situations. The vigorous pursuit of career goals among insurance agents might require them to work long hours, thus reducing the time available for the family. However, the stress level was perceived to be relatively low. Our respondents might either have already obtained understanding and support from their family, which would minimise the impact of work-family conflicts, or they were so focused on their career that they managed to ‘immunise’ themselves from family interference. In any case, ‘Family objects to my working as an insurance agent’ was the least stressful work-related situation. In sum, our insurance agents were under the most stress with situations that threatened their chances of survival and career advancement. Interpersonal workplace relations and bureaucratic practices constituted two sources of least stress for them. The overall stress level reported was low (slight to moderate), suggesting that the respondents may have acquired considerable psychological hardiness that enables them to withstand hardships of the job; that the insurance industry has provided effective buffers that safeguard its members from the immediate impact of negative work experiences; and that the insurance agents collectively have developed and adopted strategies that enable them to effectively cope with negative work situations. To further understand how work-related situations contributed to work stress among our insurance agents, the 51 work-related situations were factor-analysed to construct broader meaningful categories. Nine factors were thus obtained. The total amount of variance explained by these nine factors was 63%. The three items that had the highest loadings on the respective factor (except the last factor, which had only two items), which presumably best represented the factor, were summed to form subscales of work stress (Table 3).

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Table 3: Factor Loadings of 51 Work-related Events/Situations*—Results Based on 400 Life Insurance Agents Factor Loadings 34.8% 0.82 0.78 0.71 0.63 0.62 0.59 0.57 0.55 0.54 0.51 0.50 0.36 7.1% 0.82 0.75 0.75 0.66 0.61 0.59 0.55 0.52 0.49 0.48 Variance Explained

Factors and Items

Factor 1 Difficulty with Clients

Feeling let down by friends not buying policy from me People avoid me and do not know how to deal with me Being rejected by clients/prospects Trained to be nice to clients, even the difficult ones Having to make cold calls Effort and time do not always pay off Society does not think highly of my profession Dealing with demanding or difficult clients/prospects Unethical practices of some insurance agents Not having been able to manage time well Having to work hard to maintain good PR with clients My boss pressures me to meet my quota

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Factor 2 Poor Working Relationships with Colleagues

Working with uncooperative colleagues Working with incompetent colleagues Relationship problems with colleagues/subordinates Lack of authority to carry out my job duties Work delayed by unnecessary red tape Cannot participate in decision-making High staff turnover Too much administrative work or paperwork Jealousy and competition among colleagues Unable to make full use of my skills and ability

Having to do unnecessary task or project Having to do work outside of my competence 4.4% 0.79 0.78 0.75 0.71 0.65 3.8% 0.77 0.75 0.44 3.0% 0.71 0.70 0.57 0.55 2.7% 0.61 0.58 0.56 0.52 0.51

0.49 0.44

Factor 3 Conflicts with Superior

Difficulty in maintaining relationship with superior Lack of support from superior My beliefs contradict with those of my superior Unfair assessment from superior Discrimination and favoritism

Factor 4 Work Pressures

Time pressures and deadlines to meet Work overload Having to work continually to achieve self-set target

Factor 5 Uncertain Job Prospect

Feeling insecure in this job Feeling of being underpaid Insufficient resources and facilities to get work done Lack of promotion prospects

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Factor 6 Lack of Family Support

Absence of emotional support from family Family objects to my working as an insurance agent Under pressure to do things against my professional ethics Advancing a career at the expense of home/personal life Feeling not sure whether this job is right for me

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Table 3 (cont.) Factor Loadings 2.6% 0.72 0.67 0.49 0.44 2.4% 0.63 0.60 0.43 0.38 2.2% 0.75 0.42 63.0% Variance Explained

Factors and Items

Factor 7 Conflicts with Other Life Aspects

My life is too centered on my work Work demands affect my home/personal life My work is mentally straining Inadequate time for professional and self development

Factor 8 Professionalism

Feeling Cannot My job Difficult

of self-isolation and loneliness share problems with colleagues—will reveal weakness requires considerable independence and self-discipline to distance myself from my clients

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Factor 9 Work Underload

Work underload Fear of making mistakes that can lead to serious consequences

Total amount of variance explained

* Not experiencing the event/situation was coded as ‘0’. Note: Items in bold face were summed to form subscales for the respective factors.

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Based on the three representative items, the nine categories of workrelated situations were labelled as follows: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) difficulty with clients poor working relationships with colleagues conflicts with superiors work pressures uncertain job prospects lack of family support conflicts with other life aspects professionalism and work under-load.

The stepwise regression technique was used to examine the contribution of the various types of work situations to the overall work stress experienced by the insurance agents. Demographic variables were included in the equation to serve as controls. Results (Table 4) showed that after controlling for gender, education, age and work experience in the organisation and the position, only three factors contributed significantly to the overall work stress among insurance agents. These three were work pressures, uncertain job prospects and professionalism, with work demands standing out as the most important source

Table 4: Significant Predictors1 of Overall Work Stress Level among 400 Life Insurance Agents—Results from Stepwise Regression2 Significant Predictors Work overload Uncertain job prospect Professionalism R-squared Adjusted R-squared Valid sample size
1 2

Unstandardized Regression Coefficient 0.14 0.04 0.07

Standardized Coefficient Regression 0.48 0.14 0.21 0.44 0.44 326

Predictors were statistically significant at p < .05. Variables entered in the regression equation included (1) age, (2) education, (3) gender (men = 1, women = 0), (4) working experience in current position, (5) working experience in organization, (6) difficulty with clients, (7) poor working relationships with colleagues, (8) conflicts with superior, (9) work pressures, (10) uncertain job prospect, (11) lack of family support, (12) conflicts with other life aspects, (13) professionalism and (14) work under-load.

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of work stress (standardised regression coefficient = 0.48). The three stressors together accounted for about 44% of the variance in overall work stress (R-squared = 0.44). Statistical significance was not found for relationship-based stressors and demographic variables. These findings were consistent with the previous rankings of stressors and lent further support to the argument that much of insurance agents’ work stress arises from the very practices of the insurance industry itself. The reward system in the life insurance industry requires its agents to work long hours and make extra efforts to increase sales if they intend to survive and get ahead in their career. The commission-based remuneration system may engender in them a sense of job insecurity. The fact that the industry requires its workers to work independently and be self-disciplined may generate emotional strains among insurance agents—often manifested in feelings of loneliness and self-isolation—as they try to maintain their professional image. The results also reflected the entrepreneurial nature of the insurance profession. As entrepreneurs, the agents set their own goals in the business. To maximise profits, they often have to work in a selfexploitative mode as rewards are directly linked to efforts. Selfexploitation has thus over time become an essential coping strategy. Much of the stress that insurance agents experience may in fact be self-imposed. Psychological Consequences of Work Stress The psychological consequences of work stress were examined in terms of job satisfaction and mental health. The two psychological outcomes were regressed on nine types of work stress and several demographic variables. Stepwise regression was used to tease out the significant predictors. Results (Table 5) revealed that only two types of work stress were significantly related to job satisfaction: uncertain job prospects and professionalism. Low levels of job security and having to meet professional expectations in terms of independence and self-discipline reduced the level of job satisfaction among the respondents. As direct monetary returns to efforts and a clear career path are the major attractions of the insurance profession, it is not surprising to find that the respondents reported dissatisfaction with their job when they could not get the returns they

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Table 5: Significant Predictors1 of Job Satisfaction among 400 Life Insurance Agents—Results from Stepwise Regression2 Significant Predictors Work experience in organization Uncertain job prospect Professionalism R-squared Adjusted R-squared Valid sample size
1 2

Unstandardized Regression Coefficient 0.16 –0.32 –0.55

Standardized Coefficient Regression 0.14 –0.17 –0.26 0.17 0.16 347

Predictors are statistically significant at p < .05. Variables entered in the regression equation include (1) age, (2) education, (3) gender (men = 1, women = 0), (4) working experience in current position, (5) working experience in organization, (6) difficulty with clients, (7) poor working relationships with colleagues, (8) conflicts with superior, (9) work pressures, (10) uncertain job prospect, (11) lack of family support, (12) conflicts with other life aspects, (13) professionalism and (14) work under-load.

had expected. The negative relationship between professionalismrelated stress and job satisfaction suggested that economic gains are not the only needs of insurance agents. As social beings, they also have intrinsic needs for social companionship. The industry encourages mutual help, but to be considered professional the insurance agent is expected to work independently, e.g., being able to handle difficult situations on his or her own. In the process of developing a professional image, the insurance agent may keep problems to himself or herself—resulting in self-isolation and loneliness. Work experience in the organisation tends to enhance job satisfaction. This is probably a result of self-selection. Those agents who were not satisfied might have already left the company or even the profession. While work demands induce the most stress in insurance agents, they do not significantly reduce job satisfaction. This gives further support to the argument that stress arising from work demands is likely to be self-induced, and that insurance agents may consider it a price worth paying for future career success. With regard to mental health, stress arising from lack of family support and professionalism tended to increase the number of psychological symptoms (Table 6). In other words, the greater the stress one experienced because of a lack of family support and isolation,

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Table 6: Significant Predictors1 of Mental Health Symptoms among 400 Life Insurance Agents—Results from Stepwise Regression2 Significant Predictors Gender (men = 1, women = 0) Lack of family support Professionalism R-squared Adjusted R-squared Valid sample size
1 2

Unstandardized Regression Coefficient –0.99 0.17 0.39

Standardized Coefficient Regression –0.16 0.15 0.36 0.24 0.24 343

Predictors were statistically significant at p < .05. Variables entered in the regression equation included (1) age, (2) education, (3) gender (men = 1, women = 0), (4) working experience in current position, (5) working experience in organization, (6) difficulty with clients, (7) poor working relationships with colleagues, (8) conflicts with superior, (9) work pressures, (10) uncertain job prospect, (11) lack of family support, (12) conflicts with other life aspects, (13) professionalism and (14) work underload.

the worse one’s mental health. As pointed out by Lin (1986:28), ‘Mental health represents the psychological and emotional status of a person, and its promotion and maintenance requires expressive action.’ Expressive action refers to actions that have indistinguishable means and goals, such as sharing emotional problems and exchanging life experiences. These actions are best undertaken by using intimate social and family ties. Thus, when the insurance agent is not able to air problems and frustrations with intimate others, his or her psychological well-being is jeopardised. Work demands and other work-related stressors were not related to the health outcome after controlling for demographic variables. This finding suggested that while the respondents may have experienced stress arising from work pressures, interpersonal conflicts and business relationships with clients, these stressors did not influence their psychological state. The respondents may have developed effective coping strategies that buffered the detrimental impacts of these stressors. They may also have learned about the job duties as well as the amount of time and energy required before joining the profession. As a result, they were less affected by the stress that arose. Interpersonal conflicts at the workplace were not related to mental health, probably due to the relative insignificance of interpersonal relationships at work in advancing the agent’s career.

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Male agents tended to report fewer symptoms than their female counterparts, suggesting that the former had better mental health. This finding is consistent with previous studies which indicate that men fare better in terms of psychological well-being, which has been attributed to different roles men and women play in society and to gender differences in the expression of distress (e.g., Gove & Tudor, 1973; Newman, 1984). In summary, the findings on the psychological consequences of work stress showed that while respondents tended to report the most stress with work demands, work demands did not influence job satisfaction or mental health. The two psychological outcomes, however, were found to be related to stress arising from professionalism. Individuals who experienced stress arising from social isolation due to the need to establish a professional image were less likely to be satisfied with their work than those who did not have as strong a need. These results suggested that besides hard work, the insurance profession requires its members to have certain personality traits in order to survive and succeed in the career. One such trait is psychological hardiness. Conclusion This chapter has examined the experience of work stress and its psychological consequences among life insurance agents in the context of the institutional arrangements of the industry. Results showed that our sample of insurance agents generally experienced a low level of work stress, which was probably due to the supportive work environment in the industry. The most stress was found to be derived from work demands and the least stress from interpersonal relationships at the workplace. Even the stress arising from work overload and pressures did not deter them from having a satisfactory work life, nor did it result in mental ill-health. Despite the well-documented evidence on the spillover effects of work stress (e.g., Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985), the psychological effect of work-family interference was found to be minimal among insurance agents. This may be due to the ‘natural selection process’ of the occupation and the psychological preparation that agents had made before entering the industry. In an unstable profession with relatively low status and great job pressure, our respondents may represent a group of ‘survivors’ in the profession. Knowing the intensity of job

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demands, insurance agents may have already obtained understanding and support from their family before taking on the job. This would minimise the impact of work-family conflicts. The examination of work stress in relation to the institutional contexts of the profession has highlighted the importance of social contexts in influencing the experience of stress, an observation borne out by previous studies on the meaning of stressors (Pearlin, 1989; Thoits, 1995). Our results suggest that the perception of work stress among insurance agents is largely shaped by the meaning they attribute to the nature of their work, which in turn is conditioned by the institutional practices of the industry. While individual subjectivity is not precluded, the appraisal of situations is largely amenable to social construction.