STRESS MANAGEMENT-AT WORK PLACE - infokara research (PDF)

STRESS MANAGEMENT-AT WORK PLACE Dr. N.GUNASEGARI Assistant Professor of Commerce Thiru. A.Govindhasamy Govt. Arts College, Tindivanam. ABSTRACT On the one hand, the realization of harmful effects of stress on employees in the workplace has been proclaimed, but on the other hand, the effects and consequences of stress on employees have not been respected. The current nature of work requires faster work, more work and high-quality work. Keywords: Stress, Eustress, Distress, personality and stress coping, work relationships. INTRODUCTION We all talk about stress and feeling stressed, usually when we feel we have too much to do and too much on our minds, or other people are making unreasonable demands on us, or we are dealing with situations that we do not have control over. Human is in a transition process from an industrial to a post- industrial world. Also, the post- industrial world, like the agricultural or industrial world has its own characteristics. People were living their own simple life over thousands of years, but an industrial revolution started to change their life in so many aspects. Today, with progress in all respects, human is facing new challenges in many different fields as if progress in turn creates new problems. Over a century, the nature of working has been changed widely, and still these changes are in progress. Following these changes, number of illnesses has been increased, morality and human aspects are faded and new problems are occurred every day, so that we are facing job stress which called “illness of the century” (Jazany, Habibi and Nasr, 2010, p. 127). ISSN NO: 1021-9056 http://infokara.com/ 2109 INFOKARA RESEARCH Volume 8 Issue 11 2019  Employees are consequently caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, they need to leave work in due time; on the other hand, they must meet their employer’s requirements. And besides incomplete tasks, the result is stress. STRESS: According to “The National Job Safety and Health Institution” job stress is an annoying excitement which occurs when there is no proportion between person’s wants, job requirements, and person's talents, or worker's resources and needs. Researchers of this Institution believe that mostly, job stress and challenge is regarded as synonym, while these two words are different. Jeffrey (2006)defined stress as a state of cognitive, emotional and physical arousal. The state of arousal that is known as “stress” is caused by exposure to some actual or perceived demand or stimulus in our environment. Once we arouse the intellect, emotions and the body, we can observe changes in a person’s behaviour. Stress, at reasonable levels, is essential for a healthy life. When it gets out of control, however, stress can be a powerful destructive force. TYPES OF STRESS: a) Eustress: These are also known as Positive Stress, which makes us to feel good and exerting healthy effect. This type of Stress occurs short period of time. Selye (1978) as cited in lim, (2009) stated that pleasurable, satisfying experiences came from eustress. Eustress heightens awareness, increases mental alertness and often leads to superior cognitive and behavioural performance. Eustress gives ability to person to generate optimum output by performing best. In such situation person may thrilled, excited while watching Horror Movie, Excited when won the Prize, Zeal for purchasing first car, happiness in accomplishing challenges, etc. b) Distress: This is called as Negative Stress, bad stress. This is opposite to Eustress. Death of someone you love, Illness, Financial crisis, Heavy work load etc, leads to Distress. According to Selye (1978) as cited in Lim, (2009) distress is “damaging or unpleasant stress”. Therefore, distress can be refers to the negative effects of stress that drain of energy and surpass ones capacities to cope. It has two types such as Acute Stress and chronic Stress. Acute stress is the result of short-term stressors (Olpin&hesson 2007). ISSN NO: 1021-9056 http://infokara.com/ 2110 INFOKARA RESEARCH Volume 8 Issue 11 2019  c) Hyper-Stress: If the person pushed beyond what one can handle, which turns in to Hyper- stress. More times it occurs because workload or over worked. This type of stress occurs when constant heavy financial difficulties, work both at home and office, Continuous tension, travelling day and night etc. d) Hypostress: This is directly opposite to Hyperstress. This type of stress experienced by people when they constantly feel bored, same task over and over again, restless work and lack of inspiration. Stress Management at Workplace With knowing that stress is widespread in organizations and potentially is harmful, the organisations and persons should pay special attention to manage stress effectively. There is variety of personal and organizational strategies to manage the stress (Moorhead and Griffin, 1995, p.266). Stress causes physical, mental and behavioural problems. A person under stress is unable to pay attention to their work; therefore, it can harm them and others in that organization. Overall, job stress reduces efficiency and effectiveness of staff. Working conditions have a main role in creating stress for personnel, but the personal factors should not be ignored in this field (Alipour, 2011, p. 3). THE OTHER MOST COMMON SOURCES OF STRESS IN THE WORKPLACE: Each type of work has its own potential stress factors. According to experts dealing with the stress problems, seven categories of sources of stress generally valid for all professions have been identified. These seven categories are: 1. Inner factors connected with profession. 2. Role within the organization. 3. Personality and stress coping. 4. Work relationships. 5. Career development. 6. Culture and atmosphere within the organization. 7. Connection between home and work. ISSN NO: 1021-9056 http://infokara.com/ 2111 INFOKARA RESEARCH Volume 8 Issue 11 2019  THE CAUSES OF WORKPLACE STRESS Job stress is commonly defined as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the demands of the job exceed the capabilities, needs or resources of the worker. Studies show that employees who feel they have little control over their work in one way or another report higher stress levels. Longer work hours are another prime stressor. Almost half of employers report business performance is being affected by the stress of employees working long hours, and other impactful factors. Working overtime can result in poor mental performance, increased illness and workplace injuries The work environment which can cause stress. There are four groups of stress in the workplace: Job requirements: they are stress factors at work. For example some jobs are more stressful than the other. Physical requirements which depend on the location of job. One of the important factors is temperature. Office design can be problematic too. Role requirements: they can cause stress. It is possible that stress originates from Role ambiguity (not clear expectations) or Role confliction (coordination between two or more roles). The interaction with others: the last group of stress factors is interaction requirements which could face the person in organisational environment (Moorhead and Griffin, 1995, p.256-257). Consequences of Stress will have a lot of consequences and job effects such as migraine, alcohol or drug abuse and smoking cigarette, or physical and emotional effects such as migraine, high blood pressure and consequences concerning mental health such as depression stress consequences can be divided in 3 groups of individual, organisational and individual- organisational. Individual Consequences affect the person, mostly. However, this may also affect the company directly or indirectly. Individual consequences may be divided as follow: Behaviour consequences are reactions which can be harmful to the person and the others. long working hours have been a very common source of stress and hence there will be less time spent with their family. As a result, working long hours and having insufficient time with their immediate family may limit the amount of social support that they receive. ISSN NO: 1021-9056 http://infokara.com/ 2112 INFOKARA RESEARCH Volume 8 Issue 11 2019  (Haynes & Love, 2003) The lack of social support can be a very serious problem, which may trigger the threats of committing suicide. Mental consequences depend on person’s mental and physical health. There will be some adverse impacts when an individual reaches the stage of exhaustion. Firstly, there will be increase in physical and psychological tensions, in which the ability to relax muscle tone, to feel good, to switch off worries and anxiety reduces. Secondly, there will be changes in personality traits. For example, if a person is a neat and tidy person originally, he or she may become messy and untidy, etc. Apart from the change of personality, the existing personality problem will also increase. For example, there will be worsening of existing anxiety, over- sensitivity, defensiveness and hostility. Physical consequences would affect the person's physical state. Stress may result in physical disorders. Physiological Consequences One of the physiological responses is the ‘fight or flight’ response which happens at the automatic nervous level. In other words, people gear the body up so as to respond to the challenges facing by them, either by standing ground or hitting back or by a prompt strategic withdrawal. All these responses are happened automatically, in which the body will recognize the need for a response and produces it without the need of people to tell the body to do so. Organisational Consequences is clear that, as mentioned before, individual consequences can affect the organization, but stress has other consequences which may have effects on institution more directly. COPING WITH STRESS IN THE WORKPLACE The psychological risks of the work related stress lead to the significant costs for organizations as well as for the national economy. When employees suffer from the work- related stress and other psychological problems, they generally tend to miss a lot of working time. It is common for employees to come to work; even though they are not capable of working wholeheartedly (we call it an unwished presence). The problems of coping with stress in the workplace are actual from the human as well as the economic point of view. Generally speaking, coping with stress is defined as ”a complex of cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage, reduce or tolerate specific external and internal demands that threaten or exceed the resources of the individual.” ISSN NO: 1021-9056 http://infokara.com/ 2113 INFOKARA RESEARCH Volume 8 Issue 11 2019  The structure of coping includes coping processes, coping skills, coping patterns – Strategies and styles, and coping resources. The coping processes are person environment transactions in stressful situations with different time duration, which emerge from perception of danger, proceed at one or more reaction levels at once or one by one, and result in elimination or adaptation to the stressors. CONCLUSIONS The long-lasting stress causes a chronic mental fatigue. It is an actual problem especially among young people who do not have time to relax. It is typical for the managers who work more than 12 hours a day and often become Work aholics (i.e. people absolutely devoted to their work), and whose work rhythm is completely disrupted, without any rest. Psychosocial risks may occur in every workplace whose quality is closely linked with the stress level that employees are experiencing. Solving the problems of work related stress is demanding, however, it has to be handled logically and systematically like any other problem of the occupational safety and health. Employees’ participation is particularly important for successful managing of stress and psychosocial risks in the workplace, because managers, via consultations with the employees, help to create a trustful atmosphere, in which employees do not fear to express their worries. By employees’ participation in the preventive precautions the overall morale will be raised and adequacy and efficiency of the taken precautions will be ensured. Emotional stress and moral distress leads to absenteeism and disengagement at the workplace; this affected the performance of employees. It can also be concluded that, there was a positive relationship between workplace stressors and performance. This means that, an increase in salary and benefit increases employees‟ performance. REFERENCES 1. Arnold John and Silvester Joanne, PettersonFiona, Robrtson Ivan, CooperCary,Burnes 2. Bratská, M.: Zisky a straty v záťažových situáciách alebo príprava na život. Bratislava: Práca, 2001. s.110 – 111. ISBN 80-7094-292-4. 3. Bernard.: Psychologie práce promanažery a personalisty.Brno, ComputerPress, a.s.,Brno,2007,s.388 ISBN978-80-251- 1518-3 ISSN NO: 1021-9056 http://infokara.com/ 2114 INFOKARA RESEARCH Volume 8 Issue 11 2019  5 Yerkes, Robert M. and John D. Dodson. “The Relation of Strength of Stimulus to Rapidity of Habit-Formation.” Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology. 18 (1908): 459- 462. 6 American Institute of Stress. “Job Stress.” <http://www.stress. org/job.htm>. 7 American Institute of Stress. “Job Stress.” <http://www.stress. org/job.htm>. 8 Willingham, Jacqueline G. “Managing Presenteeism and Disability to Improve Productivity.” Benefits & Compensation Digest. 45.12 (Dec. 2008). 7. Kazmi, R., Amjad, S., & Khan, D. (2008). Occupational stress and its effect on job performance a case study of medical House Officers of district Abbottabad. J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad, 20(3). 8. Bartlett, & Ghoshal. (1995). “Effects of Job Stress on the employees Job Performance of employees: A study on Banking Sector of Pakistan. IOSR Journal of Business of Management, 11(6), 61-68. 9. Palmer, S., Cooper, C., & Thomas, K. (2001). Model of organizational stress for use within an occupational health education/promotion or wellbeing programme – A short communication. Health Education Journal, 60(4). ISSN NO: 1021-9056 http://infokara.com/ 2115 INFOKARA RESEARCH Volume 8 Issue 11 2019