Research Paper on "Workplace Stress"

Research Paper 7 pages (2371 words) Sources: 5

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Workplace Stress

"More organizations may begin to consider ways to reduce sources of workplace stress to minimize health cost escalation and the expense of defending against employees' legal actions"

(Schramm ¶ 1).

Introduction to Workplace Stress Costs

When a person experiences ongoing stresses for extended periods of time, even lower-level workplace stress, the process may or - actually can lead to health problems like high cholesterol and/or elevated blood pressure. Triggers of workplace stress include, but may not be limited to "heavy workload, lack of perceived meaningfulness of the work, role conflict related to multiple supervisors, and lack of clarity about expectations and responsibilities," according to Jennifer Schramm in the article, "Stress as a workplace health risk." Stress may or actually - can simultaneously stifle success in the business realm.

Work-related stress constitutes one of the primary roots of a number of extremely expensive, time-robbing health problems. The news account "Work-related stress emerging as major global occupational health hazard; stress creating workplace hazard as damaging as chemical, biological hazards" reports that each year, anxiety, depression, and stress, cost businesses and organizations 13.4 million working days out of 40.2 million lost by illness and injury. Despite the myriad of benefits evolving from the global, multicultural work environment, Alan C. McMillan, president and CEO of the National Safety Council, asserts that work place stress "has also contributed to a new workplace health hazard -b stress. Employers are beginning to recognize that the better they can prevent and address occupational stresses, the more productive and healthy their workers and businesses will be" (McMillan quoted in Work-related stress… ¶ 2). In light of the potential far-reaching consequences of workplace stress for not only the worker but also the workplace, the paper introduces and explores workplace stress as well as proffers conclusions about this socially significant subject.

Exploration of Workplace Stress

The news report, "Workplace stress is on the increase worldwide; the current economic climate is one of the major causes of tension," explains that workplace stress throughout the world continues to increase. The Grant Thornton consultancy conducted a worldwide International Business Report (IBR) which covered more than 7400 business owners across 36 economies. Data from the annual survey indicates that 56% of the world's private business owners think stress in the office setting increased during the past year. The IBR 2010 survey on workplace stress also suggests that a heavy workload depicts the fourth largest cause of office pressure. The survey finds that the following indicate the three most common sources of workplace stress throughout the world:

1. The current economic climate (38%);

2. pressure on cash flow (26%);

3. competitor activities (21%) ("Workplace stress…).

Figure 1 depicts four primary factors that contribute to workplace stress.

Figure 1: Factors Contributing to Workplace Stress (adapted from "Workplace stress…).

The PRWeb Newswire publication, "Workplace Stress Soars across the Globe," reports that approximately six in 10 workers in major global economies experienced a rise in workplace stress during 2007 to 2009. The Regus BusinessTracker surveyed more than 11,000 respondents from 13 countries regarding their about their workplace experiences during recent tough economic times. Compared with the international average of 58% of employees reporting experiencing higher levels of stress during the past two years, Australian workers repotedly experienced a lower rise in stress, with 55% stating their levels of stress had significantly or dramatically increased during the survey's two-year span. The survey found:

Chins experienced the most significant stress hike; with 86% of respondents reporting an increase in stress.

The Netherlands and Germany reported the lowest increase in stress; with 47% and 48% respectively reporting a rise in stress (Workplace Stress Soars…).

Other research indicates that occupational or workplace stress depicts the distinct most significant cause of occupational disease for employees. Andrew Noblet, Deakin University, Australia, and Anthony D. Lamontagne, Deakin Business School, Centre for Health and Society, University of Melbourne, Australia, explain in the study, "The role of workplace health promotion in addressing job stress," that occupational stress occurs when "external demands and conditions do not match a person's needs, expectations or ideals or exceed their physical capacity, skills, or knowledge for comfortably handling a situation" (346). Figure 2 portrays a number of potential debilitating health outcomes that chronic exposure to stress-ful situations in the workplace like low input into decision-making, poor supervisory support, and work overload have been pros-pectively and cross-sectionally connected with the following critical issues.

Figure 2: Chronic Workplace Stress Exposure Risks (adapted from Noblet and Lamontagne).

Chronic workplace stress also constitutes a potential primary barrier to an organization's ability to func-tion effectively as it contributes numerous outcomes critical to the organi-zation's success. Those negative results regularly include, but may not be limited to the following concerns:

Absenteeism,

labor turnover, and job performance (Noblet and Lamontagne).

Industry overall as well as the individual worker routinely suffer considerable losses resulting from chronic workplace stress. In the article, "Easing Stress in the Workplace," Robert Raitano, financial analyst in southern California, and Brian Kleiner, Professor of human resource management at California State University, FuUerton, California, assert the most common workplace stressors to include:

Role uncertainty: When the organization does not clearly define the employee's responsibilities, he may not have focus regarding what he needs to do and in turn may lose motivation.

Excessive demands: When the organization delegates too much work to the employee, he cannot prioritize his tasks or properly perform his core duties properly, as he may become confused and demoralized.

Extremes of authority: When the organization's chain of control becomes unbalanced and leans toward upper management, the employee may not have enough influence over his work and in turn may become overly stressed. The organization, albeit, needs to maintain, a balanced locus of authority so that when a problem beyond the worker's expertise occurs, the designated leader will implement necessary, recommend action/s.

Too much formality or informality: When the employee experiences extreme formality, it can hamper his ability to work creatively and take risks that potentially lead to genuine breakthroughs. Extensive rules can also adversely impact a project's time requirements; promoting stress. With the other extreme, however, a disproportionate amount of informality eradicates helpful guidelines. Without a template relating the best way to conduct the task and the ultimate form/format the task should attain, as well as the expected result for the task, the employee may be lost as to how to best do what needs to be done (Raitano and Kleiner).

To help the employee as well as the organization better succeed, organizational leaders need to identify and address root causes of stress, Raitano and Kleiner insist. They recommend the following steps to help an organization conduct a diagnosis of stress in its workplace.

Assess the organization's records and evaluate documentations of absenteeism, occurrences of tardiness, rates of turnover, and variations in productivity.

Interview employees and host group discussions to obtain employee feedback.

Conduct workplace surveys to unearth concerns; issues; problems.

Monitor employees' behaviors and discuss concerns with individuals who appear perturbed, drained, and/or stressed.

Analyze exit interviews.

Help workers conduct regular employee discussion groups to periodically determine potential or actual trouble areas and employee concerns. Ensure employees receive enough latitude to brainstorm possible solutions and workplace improvements (Raitano and Kleiner).

After identifying potential and actual workplace stress, organizational leaders need to utilize their diagnosis results to implement the best ways to address, confront and/or prevent workplace stress. Raitano and Kleiner assert that methods to prevent workplace stress assume three forms: Primary Prevention; Secondary Prevention; Tertiary Prevention. Primary Prevention

Primary prevention strategies endeavor to reduce and/or eliminate stress-promoting factors. Investing most of applicable resources into this type of prevention proves to be the organization's most effective way to counter stress. Methods for primary prevention include:

1. Ensuring employees have detailed job descriptions as well as plain goals to understand their responsibilities decreases stress related to confusion regarding responsibilities

2. Offering a plethora of feedback and holding regular performance evaluations enables staff members to know how they are performing in their jobs and decreases their workplace stress.

3. Developing an organizational environment that balances authority and formality decreases stress relating to particular decision-making processes.

4. Assigning interrelated tasks to one person or a team and empowering the person or team to complete the activity from beginning to end, periodically reporting to management helps reduce workplace stress as it gives the employee a significant sense of control. In addition, it invests the employee in the outcome of the activity so will devote more of themselves into completing the job.

5. Maintaining venues of communication among key personnel and nurturing open dialogue between leaders and employees helps minimize uncertainty, a critical contributor to workplace stress.

6. Redistributing the decision-making process and allocating authority for employees to make decisions that affect their work outcome decreases workplace stress.

7. Implementing flexible work schedules for employees enables them to more productively coordinate their workplace and personal schedules, which reduces the time related stressors.

8. Ensuring employees receive needed training and relevant resources to perform their helps alleviate stressors related… READ MORE

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