Work Stress Management (Essay Sample)

Work Stress Management
Aziz Alasiry
Institution
Abstract
Work stress is common among employees that work in environment that is demanding. The need to perform complex tasks within strict datelines and the strict eye of a manager or a supervisor can cause an employee to develop stress. Job roles and coworker relationship also contribute to the work stress that people get in their jobs. Additionally, family responsibilities and rising standards of living make people to chuckle between different jobs while working for long hours. These and several other reasons contribute to development of stress, which can be detrimental to the work output by employees. However, knowing how to manage stress is an important factor to ensuring that employees continue to function well even in times of stress. Work stress management is thus a skill that every employee should be acquainted since people do not know when they will develop work stress on their job. This paper discusses work stress effects of work stress to a person, and how to manage it.
Key words: work stress, work stress management, work stress effects
Work Stress Management
Introduction
According to  HYPERLINK "/" Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (2010), stress is the feelings that come about when a person, a structure, or a system is acted upon by forces, which interfere with the balancing mechanism of the body that is being acted upon. Work stress therefore means that a person experiences harmful emotional responses resulting from the conflict the pressure on the employee and the amount of control that is available to the employee in meeting the demands. In essence, work stress comes about as a manifestation of the employee’s lack of control in meeting the high demands on the job. Thus, the employee feels helpless in the midst of a situation that is calling for their attention.
Work Stress Signs and Symptoms
People who are experiencing stress in their workplace always show signs and symptoms that are characteristics of the condition. However, it is important to note first that not all forms are bad, as there is the good side of stress. For instance, positive stress acts as a motivational factor for people to perform their work assignment within the stipulated time. As such, they wake up in the morning motivated by the stress of accomplishing a certain task in their workplace. Signs and symptoms of work stress according to include, insufficient sleep, abnormal drinking, feeling of depression, being anxious and nervous, and regular bounds of anger probably as a result of sensing unfairness or mistreatment at work.
The above can be divided into physiological, mental, and behavioral and can be observed by either a colleague at work or a psychologist. Physiological symptoms include increased blood pressure and therefore increased metabolism. This is because the heart tends to beat faster leading to high respiration in the body. In addition, there can be intestinal movement, which may lead to indigestion, poor of failed response to stimuli and reduced levels of protein synthesis by the body system. Similarly, people who have stress develop localized inflammation characterized by feeling of pain, reddish eyes, swelling among others. They may also develop stomachache due to increased acids in the intestines.
On the other hand, mental symptoms include absent-mindedness, anger, anxiety and forgetfulness. Similarly, such people experience reduced levels of attention or alertness because of reduced levels of perception. They also become less effective in their thinking capacity so that they are not able to solve the problems they used to solve, thus they also become lesser problem solvers and this can exacerbate their stress levels. Furthermore, mental symptoms such as reduced learning capability and resistance to change also are evident in people who are experiencing stress at their workplace. Another mental sign is that they stress can cause one to be easily distracted due to reduced levels of attention.
Behavioral symptoms and changes of work stress include reduced or distracted sleep, which can lead to a sleep disorder and habit change. For instance, some people will withdraw within themselves and avoid circumstances that will require them to socialize with other people, while others will resort to undesirable behaviors like drinking excessively or use of drugs. Still others become unfriendly and defensive of their actions. They may always be angry on everything and show exaggerated responses to events in their family and work life. Some become anxious and sad about something that they cannot explain.
Causes and Reasons of Work Stress
Work stress is related to the nature of the person. That is, some people are exposed more work stress than others. Clearly, some people are born with a personality that predisposes them to higher or lower levels of tolerance to pressure. This is seen in the fact that a job that is causing stress to one person may not affect different person. However, industrial organization psychologists have identified a couple of other reasons as capable of causing stress. This includes factors that are unique to the job, career development, the role at work, interpersonal relationship among others. There are two types defined by psychologists and experts: A and B.
It is evident that people respond differently to a problem or a stressor at work. Type A personality show the attributes of hard driving, persistent, and like to get deeply involved in work for long hours. They work overtime without stopping and can come to the workplace earlier than anyone else can. They insist on accomplishing a particular type of work even if it is evident that they do not have the capacity to carry on with the work. In the process, they overwork themselves. Mostly, they are consumed in anxiety, hopelessness, resentment, and normally have increased heart beat rate ( HYPERLINK "/" Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, 2010).
On the other hand type B personality contrasts with type in that they seem to be “don’t cares”. This type of people work steadily and always seems to be enjoying whatever they are doing, regardless of whether things are not as good. As such type be personality do not mind if the lost and therefore are hard to be hit with stress. Additionally, they are creative and most of the times come up with new ideas and concepts. They are the problem solvers and critical thinkers in the place of work. Notable type B personality leave at lower stress levels than type A.
Sources of Work Stress
Work stress emanate from a number of sources. As observed by Robert & Kenneth (1990), the source might either be the personality of the worker or the environment in which the person is working. Personality centered sources include family problems or family exposure to work related conflicts. Environment related sources of stress include conflicting supervision or lack of supervision, coworker conflicts, threats to personal safety and all forms of harassment, and unavailability of defined systems in the work place to channel complaints. Failure to respond to complaints by an employee can also make them to be stressed. Some people are stressed up with overwhelming workloads or even a lack of it; others are stressed because of lack of anything to do at work or the fear of becoming redundancy in their workplace.
However, as noted by Martin (2010), there are three main causes of stress in workplace. These are job demands, working environment, and interpersonal relationship in the workplace. Job demands can include overloading or under loading, meaningless and complex jobs, the need to make autonomous decisions at the workplace where consultation and advice is lacking. This is mostly common whenever ones decision backfires and the whole team blames one person for that failure. Job demands also include working for long hours including shifts without recognition or appreciation especially where the ability of the employee do not match the job demands. Working in a noisy stench environment can also cause stress and even being isolated or working in an excluded office.
Work environment can affect the stress level of an employee in a number of ways. For instance, if duties and roles are not clearly defined and delegated, they can lead to conflicting job demands. Ambiguity in the role and lack of clarity thereof can also cause stress to the employee in the same way the expectations should be defined so that an employee knows in advance what is expected from them. Similarly, undefined supervision for example with several managers and supervisor giving different instruction can make an employ to be stressed.
Interpersonal relationship is important in ensuring an employee gets necessary support from the colleagues in the place of work. It should also be enhanced between management and the employee to ensure smooth communication. If there is poor relationship between employees themselves or even between employees and the management, there will be a lot of stress because communication will not be effective and even motivation and encouragement may not be there for the employees. Poor relationship in the workplace can be a source of harassment, intimidation, and false accusations between employees or the management and the employee.
Additionally, under promotion and over promotion together with availability of career development opportunities to an employee can be a contributing factor to overall stress levels. Some employees may experience job dissatisfaction because there are no opportunities for them to advance in their career or may be because promotions are not forthcoming ( HYPERLINK "/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Julia+Hillebrandt%22" Hillebrandt, 2008). Moreover, some workers become stressed because their job security is not guaran...