Introduction to Stress and Well-Being at Work
For employees everywhere, the troubled economy may feel like an emotional roller coaster. "Layoffs" and "budget cuts" have become bywords in the workplace, and the result is increased fear, uncertainty, and higher levels of stress. Since job and workplace stress grow in times of economic crisis, it’s important to learn new and better ways of coping with the pressure. The ability to manage stress in the workplace can make the difference between success and failure on the job. Your emotions are contagious, and stress has an impact on the quality of your interactions with others. The better you are at managing your own stress, the more you’ll positively affect those around you and the less other people’s stress will negatively affect you.
Stress management is the need of the hour. However hard we try to go beyond a stress situation, life seems to find new ways of stressing us out and plaguing us with anxiety attacks. Moreover, be it our anxiety, mind-body exhaustion or our erring attitudes, we tend to overlook causes of stress and the conditions triggered by those. In such unsettling moments we often forget that stressors, if not escapable, are fairly manageable and treatable.
Several large global insurance companies regularly conduct nationwide surveys to assess the amount of job stress experienced by people at all levels in all types of organisations. Extensive surveys conducted on 45 000 employees by Northwestern Life Insurance Company captured some sobering information about job stress. Seventy per cent of employees said that their jobs are ‘extremely stressful’. Further, the respondents reported that they were three times as likely as employees reporting low work stress to experience problems in their lives or work due directly to the stress that they experience on the job. Their employers reported that those stressed out employees:
- Make more physical and mental health insurance claims.
- Are less productive.
- Exhibit more outbursts on the job
- Exhibit more turnover, absenteeism and substance abuse.
Thirty-five per cent of the respondents said that they were ‘burned out’ by work overload and they often experienced stress or tension-induced anger (intermittent explosive disorder) on the job. They reported on other factors that amplified their chronic work overload and experienced job stress. These ‘amplifiers of stress’ and their frequency pattern are noted below:
- Unfair and demanding bosses or managers (29 per cent).
- Unsupportive, angry and abrasive co-workers (31 per cent).
- Inadequate authority for current job responsibilities (61 per cent).
- Technology-based interruptions (e-mail) that undermine personal productivity (78 per cent).
Respondents reported that company efforts to reduce costs also contribute to the toxic brew of job stress. Many firms now announce large layoffs but they don’t say who will get pink slips or when it will happen. This throws employees into a paralysing state of anxiety that the downsizing axe is about to fall on them. Often this intolerable situation is a consequence of merger activity or changes in the firm’s ownership. Downsizing and mergers are here to stay and these forces are often cited as chronic stressors by employees. Employees contribute directly to the productivity of a company and in order to be productive they should not be stressed. Chances are that a stressed worker will contribute negatively to a company’s productivity and a group of stressed employees can result in erosion of profit margins. Hence, stress management at workplace assumes a significant role. A company’s management should have advance plans and strategies to help its employees manage stress. One of the biggest causes of workplace stress is the job itself. The management should make sure to reconcile the job profile with the employee’s profile. Job rotation, matching with the worker’s physical and emotional capacity and resources will go a long way in reducing stress.
When under severe stress, an individual fails to take clear-cut decisions, re-evaluate and reassess the priorities and lifestyles, and ultimately, tend to fall into unproductive distractions. This can be described as a classic case of ‘burnout’. The ‘burnouts’ often engage in reckless or risk-taking behaviours. Starting from glamour and sport celebrities to common men, ‘burnouts’ are found everywhere.