Concept of Stress in the Workplace - Essay Example

Concept of Stress in the Workplace Introduction This paper discusses the concept of stress in the workplace including its nature and sources with the evaluation of the approaches to its alleviation being adopted in business. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) defines job stress as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker. Stress is generally an undesirable pathological human reaction to psychological, social, occupational, or environmental stimuli. Minter (1999) defines stress as the reaction of the human organism to a threatening situation. The stressor is an external stimulus, and stress is the response of the human body to this stimulus (p. 49). Nature of Stress Naturally, stress is the body's imprecise reaction to any demand made on it. It influences people in different ways and is consequently an extremely individual condition. Particular events may be relatively stressful to one person but not to another. Additionally, the outcome of stress is not always negative. For instance, mild stress essentially develops productivity, and it can be useful in developing innovative ideas. Stress is the occurrence of opportunities or threats that people recognize as significant and also recognize they might not be able to handle or deal with successfully. A number of significant aspects of stress are emphasized in this definition. First, as previously discussed, stress can be experienced because of both opportunities and threats. An opportunity is something that will likely benefit a person. A threat, on the other hand, is something that has the possibility to harm a person. If employees lack self-effectiveness and fear that they will not be able to carry out at an adequate level, opportunities such as learning new skills or getting a new job can be stressful. Stress can be experience by employees when an organization reduces the size of its workforce since their financial security, psychological well-being, and career development are threatened. It is comprehensible that having to work on long hours causes employees to experience stress as it threatens their family lives. Sources of Workplace Stress The sources of workplace stress may engage physical working conditions, work overload, role indistinctness, lack of feedback, personality, personal and family problems, or role conflict. Other sources of stress in the workplace can be broken down and specifically discussed as with the following: Task complexity. This source of stress talks about to the number of diverse demands made on the worker. A job distinguished as being too complex may cause feelings of insufficiency and result in emotional stress. In the same way, repetitive and monotonous work may lack complexity in order that the worker becomes bored and discontented with the job and probably experiences some stress related with the boredom. Another source of workplace stress is the control over the job assignment. When workers partake in determining the work routine as well as schedule and selection of tasks, most workers experience less stress. A number of studies have signified that workers choose to take control of their job assignment and experience less workload stress provided with this opportunity (Grandjean 1998). A correlated source of stress that has been established in the period of high technology is from electronic monitoring. According to the study "Electronic Monitoring Causes Worker Stress" (1990) conducted at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, "Video display terminal workers who are electronically monitored suffered greater health problems than those who are not." The feeling of responsibility for safety and wellbeing of family members possibly will create workplace stress. Taking responsibility for the welfare of his or her family can cause a worker to feel that choices to take employment risks are limited. A worker could then recognize that he or she is trapped in the job. Excessively constricted employment options can lead to anxiety and stress. The sense of being responsible for the safety of the general public has also been found to be a stressor. Air traffic controllers are known to experience extreme stress when their liability for public safety is tested by a near-accident event. A sense of immense responsibility related with a job can alter a routine activity into a stress-inducing duty. Job security entails the threat of unemployment. A worker who thinks that his or her job is at risk will experience anxiety and stress. The ready availability of other gratifying employment and a feeling of that one's professional skills are required to lessen the stress linked with job security issues. Organizational culture is also been found to leave the employee feeling left out, out of the loop, and ill-informed. In organizations wherein managers fail to communicate regularly and efficiently with employees are making high-stress environments for workers. Work schedules that are irregular, never changing, and ever changing can stimulate stress in employees. Employees do have lives outside of their jobs. As a result, the ability to foresee their work schedule is critically essential. Once work schedules are irregular and unpredictable, stress increases. Similarly, inflexible work schedules can also increase stress when they cannot be changed no matter what other obligation the employee might have. Then again, ever-changing work schedules like those connected with shift work can also increase the stress level of employees. In the end, the big-picture concern regarding to work schedule is the employees' level of control that have over their lives. The less control, the more stress. Home and family problems can build further stress for workers. Many organizations expected employees to leave their problems at the front door coming in for work. This is certainly a realistic impossibility for the difficulty of raising children, working out home and job schedules, dealing with the contradictory agendas intrinsic in dual-career families, and if not managing the everyday work and home divergence that unavoidably happens can obviously increase stress level of an employee. Work relationships. By nature, people are social beings who like to get along with people whom they spend a lot of time with. Nevertheless, office politics, turf battles, and internal competition for credit and rewards can be tough on work relationships. Stress levels increase as soon as employees do not get along with their fellow workers. Human resource management (HRM) issues can also cause on-the-job stress. Working people have a vested concern in their wages, salaries, working conditions, and benefits. Provided that one of these factors is a negative, stress levels of employees can increase considerably. Along with these factors, other stress-inducing HRM problem include underemployment, failure to get promoted, and working in a position that is obviously not appreciated by management. Workload demands can encourage stress by the time they are distinguished as being overwhelming. These demands possibly will entail time constraint and cognitive constraints such as pace of decision-making and directive for attention. Moreover, workload demands can also be physically overwhelming if the worker is inadequately matched to the physical necessities of the job or is exhausted. Stress can result every time the worker considers the workload to be too demanding. Psychological support from managers and coworkers provides a feeling of recognition and belonging and assists in defusing stress. Correspondingly, a lack of such support may augment the perception of a heavy workload and result in stress. The lack of environmental safety is also been found to cause workplace stress. The workers feeling that he or she is at risk can be a stressor. Workers have to feel safe from environmental hazards such as severe temperatures, pressure, electricity, fire and the like. In order to lessen the probability for stress because of environmental hazards, workers must feel that their managers are dedicated to safety and that their company has an efficient safety program. Workplace Stress and Human Reactions Recurrent or persistent stress has been associated with many physiological problems (Fraser 1997). At the start, the effects may perhaps be psychosomatic, but with persistent stress, the symptoms turn up as real organic dysfunction. The most frequent forms of stress-related diseases are gastrointestinal, mostly gastric or duodenal ulcers. Fraser's (1997) research has associated some autoimmune diseases with increased long-term workplace stress. The human reaction to workplace stress can be compared to that of a rubber band being stretched. When the stress continues to be applied, the rubber band stretches until a limit is attained and the rubber band breaks. Likewise for humans, different physical and psychological changes are viewed with the recurring stimuli of stress. Until the limit is reached, the risky effects can be repealed. Correspondingly, the effects on the human become pathological with an increase in intensity or extent of the stress past the individual's limit. Reducing Workplace Stress Not all sources of workplace stress can be reduced, and employment screening is not likely to recognize all those who are receptive to stress. Nevertheless, people are capable of learning to adjust to stress. Training, for instance, can aid people to distinguish and deal with stress efficiently. Employees have the need to know what is expected of them at any given time and to obtain appreciation when it is earned. Managers, on their part, can lessen role indistinctness and stress caused by lack of feedback by giving regular feedback. Stress can be a consequence of low involvement or lack of job independence. A manager can assist employees recognize their full potential through helping them balance their career goals with that of the company and providing them more power over jobs. Reduction of workplace stress can be achieved by giving employee mental health insurance benefits, developing employee-management communications, offering workers with information on how to deal and cope with stress, presenting job descriptions, communicating with employees frequently, recognizing and recompensating contributions, having published work rules, and recommending child care and elder care programs. Furthermore, other stress reducers include allowing flexible work hours, granting reasonable perks, giving sufficient training and technology access, giving a place and time to relax, keeping uncrowded workplaces with space to accommodate personal items, and maintaining a management that uphold a sense of humor. Individuals can successfully counteract to a stressful workload in delegating responsibility and learning how to relax. Relaxation techniques include meditation, biofeedback, music, and exercise. One of the most essential factors in dealing with stress is learning to distinguish its symptoms and taking the symptoms sincerely. Work-Life Balance and Stress Management Stress influences the way people feel and perform both on and off the workplace. Stress is not only a national but a global concern and sadly an all-too-common problem (Fuller et al. 2003). Most of us at one time or another encountered some of the effects of excessive stress: sleepless nights, anxiety, nervousness, and headaches or stomachaches. A study had found that around 40 million Americans experienced stress during a two-week period (Wall Street Journal 1993). Additionally, stress costs business organizations billions of dollars every year in lost productivity, absenteeism, turnover, and health care costs for stress-related illnesses. Therefore, recognizing and managing stress is vital not only for the welfare of the members of an organization but also for the efficiency and success of the organization itself. Coping with Stress There are two basic types of coping according to Folkman and Lazarus (1984): problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping refers to the steps people take in dealing directly with and act on the source of stress. For instance, employees facing the threat of a discharge may cope in a problem-focused approach by looking for other jobs in organizations that are not downsizing. The success of problem-focused coping will help employees handle with opportunities and threats that are causing stress. Emotion-focused coping, on the other hand, relates to the steps people take to deal with and control their stressful feelings and emotions (Folkman & Lazarus 1980). For instance, some employees facing the threat of a discharge may endeavor to lighten some of their stressful feelings and emotions through exercising frequently or meditating. The success of emotion-focused coping will reduce stressful feelings and emotions caused by threats and opportunities that do not get out of hand (Lazarus 1991). Conclusion (Evaluating the Means in Coping with Stress) Notwithstanding its origin, stress possesses overwhelming potential. Despite the fact that work-related factors can be handled to varying degrees, others may not be. In the end, the degree to which stress is experienced and whether it is probable or negative depends on the way people cope (i.e. manage or deal with stressors). References Grandjean, E. (1998). Fitting the Task to the Man. New York: American Management Association. pp. 176-77. Folkman, S. & Lazarus, R.S. (1980). "An Analysis of Coping in a Middle-Aged Community Sample." Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 21, pp. 219-39. Folkman, S. & Lazarus, R.S. (1984). Stress, Appraisal, and Coping. New York: Springer. Fraser, T.M. (1997). The Worker at Work. New York: Wiley. 104, pp. 110-11. Fuller, J.A. et al. (2003). "A Lengthy Look at the Daily Grind: Time Series Analysis of Events, Mood, Stress, and Satisfaction." Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(6), pp. 1019-33. Lazarus, R.S. (1991). "Psychological Stress in the Workplace." Journal of Social Behavior and Personality. 6(7), pp. 1-13. Minter, S. (1999 May). "Too Much Stress". Occupational Hazards. 61(5), p. 49 Occupational Health & Safety Letter, (1990 October 17). "Electronic Monitoring Causes Worker Stress", 20(21), p. 168. Wall Street Journal, (1993 November 26). "Negative Feelings Afflict 40 Million Adults in U.S." p. B1. Read More