Job stress affects health & productivity in the workplace. Job stress is harmful to physical and emotional responses. These negative responses occur when the needs of the job do not equate with the ability, resources, or desires of the worker. In the long term, job stress often leads to poor health, productivity, and even injury.
What Is Job Stress?
It is widely believed that job stress is a consequence of the interface of the worker with the situation at work. However, there are different opinions about a working situation as the main cause of job stress.
First, one opinion is that differences in personality and coping styles of an individual are factors. Putting it succinctly, what is stressful for one person may not be a problem for someone else. Therefore, job stress affects health & productivity in the workplace differently among workers.
Second, scientific-based opinion reasons for a greater focus on working conditions as the key source of job stress. And goes on to suggest a job redesign as a primary prevention strategy for job stress.
Job Conditions That May Lead To Stress
There are several hectic routine tasks that add little meaning to workers’ skills or provide some sense of control. These include heavy workloads, less frequent rest breaks, long work hours, and shiftwork. Other job conditions that may lead to stress are provided below:
- Non- participation by workers in decision-making. Or poor communication in the organisation and the absence of family-friendly policies.
- Poor social environment and absence of support. Or help from coworkers or supervisors. Generally poor interpersonal relationships.
- Conflicting or unclear job expectations, heavy responsibility, and several ‘jack of all trade’ scenarios.
- Job insecurity and absence of growth opportunities, advancement, or promotion; spontaneous changes for which workers are unprepared.
- Bad and dangerous physical conditions such as crowding, noise, and air pollution. Or ergonomic problems.
Stress Negative Impact On Health & Productivity In The Workplace
Some employers believe stressful working conditions are necessary to turn on the heat for workers. But research findings show that stressful working conditions are actually associated with more absenteeism, lateness, and worker’s plan to leave their jobs. And all of these in the long term affect productivity and profitability negatively.
On the other hand, health-inclined organisations with policies that benefit the workers’ health also benefit profitability. Furthermore, a health-inclined organisation has low rates of illness, injury, and disability in its workforce, low-stress work, and high productivity. There is also a culture of valuing the worker, while management actions are in line with organisational values. For instance, there is the recognition of employees for good work, as well as opportunities for career development.
How To Prevent Stress In The Workplace
Normally in order to prevent negative stress impact on health & productivity in the workplace, the most frequently useful method for stress prevention at work is a mixture of organisational change and stress management.
While the first signs of job stress are often shown through low morale, health and job complaints, and employee turnover. However, there are no signs at times, particularly when employers are afraid of losing their jobs. So, the absence of any clear signs is not a good reason to throw away anxieties over job stress. Or lessen the significance of a prevention program.
Step 1: Recognise the Problem
This step depends on the size of the organisation and the resources available to it. But group discussions among managers, labor representatives, and employees can provide rich sources of information about stressful job conditions.
This information should be summarised and analysed to answer questions about the location of a stress problem and job conditions that may be responsible. For example, are the problems present throughout the organisation or confined to one department or specific jobs?
To-do list for Step 1:
- Organise group discussions with employees.
- Design an employee survey.
- Quantify employee views of job conditions, stress, health, and satisfaction.
- Gather objective data.
- Analyse data to classify problem areas and stressful job conditions.
Step 2: Design and Execute Interventions
By the end of Step 1, the sources of stress at work would have been identified and the scope of the problem understood. The stage is now set for the design and execution of an intervention strategy.
There is the possibility that a hostile work environment may be pervasive in the organization. This requires company-wide interventions. While other problems such as excessive workload may exist only in some departments. In such situations, more narrow solutions, such as a job redesign of the way a job is performed.
Furthermore, other problems may be specific to certain employees, and resistant to any kind of organisational change. This needs stress management or employee assistance interventions. Some interventions might be implemented rapidly (e.g., better communication, and stress management training). While others may require additional time to put into place (e.g., redesign of a manufacturing process).
To-do list for Step 2
- Focus on the cause of stress for change.
- Recommend and prioritise intervention strategies.
- Address employees on planned interventions.
- Execute Interventions.
Step 3: Evaluate the Interventions
After successful completion of Steps 1& 2, evaluation is essential to ascertain if the previous interventions are producing anticipated effects. Or if changes in direction are needed. It is important to set up time frames for assessing intervention that involves both short- and long-term scrutiny.
For instance, short-term evaluations might be done quarterly to deliver an early sign of program effectiveness. Or a possible need for adjustment. While long-term evaluations may be conducted annually. These long-term evaluations are necessary to determine whether interventions produced lasting effects.
Evaluations should focus on the same types of information collected from employees about working conditions, levels of perceived stress, health problems, and satisfaction.
Employee perceptions are usually the most sensitive measure of stressful working conditions. And they often provide the first indication of intervention effectiveness. Adding objective measures such as absenteeism and health care costs may also be useful. But, tend to be less clear-cut and can take a long time to appear.
The job stress prevention process does not end with evaluation. But rather a continuous process that uses evaluation data to refine or adjust the intervention strategy.
To-do list for Step 3
- Conduct both short- and long-term evaluations.
- Measure employee perceptions of job conditions, stress, health, and satisfaction.
- Measure employee perceptions of job conditions, stress, health, and satisfaction.
- Include objective measures.
- Refine the intervention strategy and return to Step 1.
https://www.who.int/occupational_health/topics/stressatwp/en/
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