Stress at Workplace - Essay Example

Work related stress Work related stress As pointed out by the health and safety executive (HSE), stress is defined as an adverse reaction resulting from excessive pressure or any job related demands that have been placed on them. Therefore, work stress is a spontaneous physiological reaction that occurs in the event there is a mismatch between resources and capabilities of a worker to meet specific job demands. People perceive demands differently hence eliciting different reaction to different situations (King & Lawley 2013). For instance, to one person, a specific challenge may appear to be stimulating demands while to another person, this very challenge causes a damaging level of stress. The threshold level of stress as experienced by different people depends on the individual appraisal of their works demands. Such subjective appraisal of work demands is affected by a myriad of other factors that may not be work related, for instance, socio-economic factors. Apart from these, there are other factors that may affect workers appraisal of demand include race, gender, age, geographic location, health, housing, number of children community work and family arrangements (Arnold, et al. 2010). Furthermore, there should be a consideration of specific psychological factors that include personal traits and experiences. Lastly, stress level depends on the workers interpretation of threatening demand and whether he or she believes that he or she can meet the demands of that particular job. Thus, all these psychological and social variables profoundly affect experiences of stress by different individuals. Subjective self-evaluations reported by individual are valid just likes objective data collected on an individual which include aspects such as absenteeism and accidents. As the national association of mental health reported recently, the workers personality and coping strategy have direct perceptual or moderating effects on outcomes of stress. For instance, a socially isolating job will be more stressful to an extrovert while an introvert will find work that needs more social interaction to be stressful and difficult (Fincham, et al 2005) the coping skills that this person possess. Thus, one job that is stressful to one worker is likely not to be stressful to another. That means that while putting across preventive measures on workplace stress; one should always consider the difference in perception of stress. Numerous strategies have to be devised to manage stressful situations for different workers depending on their personality and coping skills. In management of the work related stress, the top management has to always perform a periodical risk assessment to find out the major stressors and the same find out the potential stressful event so that it can be mitigated before it occurs (Grint, 2005) some among the major stress cause include: Working conditions Despite the fact that there are individual differences in relation to stress perception; scientific studies have shown that there are certain working conditions that are stressful to most workers universally. Dick, et al. (2006), argues that these forms one of the key causes of stress in the job with job redesign being the primary method of prevention. From Cooper, (1998) about 56 percent of workers in the European Union reported of working under tight deadlines hence they had slightly increased work intensity. While in this kind of a situation, one can panic and have psychological disorientation more so when the deadline is nearing with a lot of work yet to be completed. The training and fear of not delivering in time contributes a lot to the setting in of stressful conditions. Foxcom an apple production company in china, managed to change the working conditions of workers and ensure that there is a good working condition among its employees to increase performance. There were increased number of stress related events and one of the workers committed suicide. The company decided to increase salaries of the employees so that they can get motivated (Hille, 2010). Workload Dealing with workload, most of the time is stressful and serves as a major stressor for most of the employees. Workload can be of three aspects. First, it can be a situation whereby; work available is immense, hence not completed comfortably despite the fact that there might be enough time to carry out the work. Second is a situation whereby the work given is too difficult to complete hence leaving the workers in stalemate without an idea of what to do. Lastly, is giving a worker some duty that does not utilize skills and capabilities, infarct it is giving workers a wrong job that does not match with what they are supposed to be doing. Apart from causing psychological stress, workload has been associated with numerous negative effects on the workers. They include anxiety, fatigue, headache, gastrointestinal problems and some physiological reactions, for instance, cortical (Buelens, et al. 2011) To deal with the workload, a model was developed that is useful in solving this stalemate. The model demand –control, suggest that as one has more control over the work assigned, there is decreased stress on the work. Foxcom saw it workers overworked for the increased quantity of work. The company resolved to improve increasing the number of workers who increased their performance and resilience at work (Hille, 2010). Long hours of work Quite a large number of Americans work for long hours amounting to over 50 hours in a week. According to Bratton, et al. (2010) there is about 44 % of American who are working for more than fifty hours in a week in the public sector and about 41% in the private sector work for long hours. Men work for more hours than women do at 26 % and 11% apiece. These can cause more stressful situation in cases where a couple works for this long at the same time with young children. This sparks a myriad of unmet obligations that surmount to stress for the workers. Management of long working hours has been achieved a number of companies to maintain the stress free environment. Most notably is the china apple factory. Workers used to work for over 60 hours a week which was far above the minimal working hours as per to the working limits of china which is 49 hours. They have cut the working hours down to 53 hours in which as seen a great improvement. The company managed to decrease working hours by increasing the number of working (Hille, 2010). Status of worker at the working palace Fineman, et al (2010) confirms that status at the workplace determines the level of stress they are exposed to. All categories of workers in an organization are exposed to stressors at different level hence can be managed differently. However Blosi, et al. (2007) Confirm that workers at the lower level of management to those workers who do not play a role in decision making completely, have a higher risk of developing work-related stress and furthermore they are vulnerable to workload and myriad of other stakeholders. The stressful situation sets in for the fact that these people are not able to mobiles resources or make decisions on how a task is to be completed. The starbucks policy ensures that each employee works at his or her level at work. Each should work to their within the requirements of law. Bullying Bullying has been on the rise for the past few years. King & Lawley (2013) observed that there has been an increased rate of bullying in both the central government and the local government. There has been an increase from 37 to 40 % and 33 to 37 % apiece. The types of bullying can be broken down to five different types and they include threat of professional status, threat of status personally, isolation, excessive work, and lastly it can be destabilization a situation whereby one performs meaningless tasks without credit on whatever that they do. This will in turn make the work environment for the employees very hostile hence affecting their level of contribution to the development of the organization at last (Hollway, 1991). Starbucks has developed a policy that wild ea with people who bully others the stringent rules on bullying, have been the driving force in ensuring there is decreased level of bullying between workers or between the boss and the management. Psychopath and narcissism In his suggestion, Thomas says that people working with a narcissist tend to have a much higher level of stress, which is evidenced by absenteeism, and turnover of staff from the station. To deal with these issues, the management has to beware of these kinds of people and deal with then accordingly. This is important for the fact that, most people will be lost by the organization for the fact that majority of sane workers cannot tolerate these kinds of people. Alternatively, an organization can have closed office structures whereby each has his or her office hence reducing the rate of interaction with other workers. Workplace conflict Interpersonal conflicts among employees are some of the leading stresses in most organizations. It has been noted to be an indicator of workplace harassment and at the same time can lead to other stressors that might co-occur like, role conflict, role ambiguity, or workload. In addition, it leads to strains like anxiety, depression and low level of job satisfaction. Coca-Cola Company working in a diverse environment has experienced a number of conflicts among workers that have emerged from different cultural background. Therefore Coca Cola Company has come up with a policy guiding on the way people are interacting and the procedure of conflict management. Sexual harassment Sexual harassment is most of the time experience among women working in areas that have been presumed masculine. From studies, it has been confirmed that women who are harassed sexually have poor rate of performance as compared to those who are not. Therefore, sexual harassment like other stressors at the workplace reduces the productivity of the affected employee (Huczynski & Buchanan, 2010). Starbucks forms one of the largest coffee shops in the world with so many employees. Upon rising cases of sexual harassment, Starbucks came up with the zero tolerance policy that ensures there is no sexual harassment among workers. The policy provides for a thorough investigation that leads to punishment in case one was found quality. Among the prohibited sexual harassment acts are sharing of pornographic photos and touching workers body parts. Conclusion Stressors at work are major determinants of the output of each employee. Poorly managed stress at the workplace has far-reaching effects to both the employees and the organization at large. Therefore, in order for the management to achieve its optimal potential, it has to ensure that there is periodical and timely risk assessment to ensure that clients are free of stressors and maintain that maximum productivity of each employee. In addition, well-managed stressors will lead to allowing turnover rate hence saving the company expenses used to get replacements more frequently. 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Fincham, R and Rhodes, P. 2005 (Fourth Edition) Principles of Organizational Behaviour: Oxford University Press: Oxford. Fineman, S., Gabriel, Y. and Sims, D. 2010 (4th edition) Organizing and Organizations, Sage: London. Grint, K. 2005 (3rd edition) The Sociology of Work: An Introduction, Polity Press. Hollway, W. 1991 Work Psychology and Organisational Behaviour: Managing the Individual at Work, Sage Publications: London. Huczynski, A. and Buchanan, D. 2010 Organizational Behaviour: An Introductory Text (7th Edition), London: Prentice Hall. Read More