Introduction
Employees are stressed almost everywhere at work, at home, and in their spare time. Corporations have become more aware of managing stress over the last decade. There are two critical reasons for an organization to manage its workforce appropriately.
The first is the requirement for motivated and productive employees; the second is an organization’s legal responsibility for employee care. In the business world, stress has emerged as an ever-increasing focal point. As an employee, one constantly hears about it. When a company downsizes, the remaining employees experience stress as their workloads and duration at work increase.
According to surveys, employees frequently struggle to balance work and family responsibilities (Kassymova et al., 2018). Companies fail in this competitive market, so job security differs from what it used to be. Recognizing what stress is, where it arises from, and what it indicates to an organization are the first steps a manager can take to alleviate some of the havoc it causes. This paper will look at the various causes of organizational stress and the effects of stress on an organization. Finally, individual and organizational approaches to stress management are discussed.
Causes of Stress
Money, work, family obligations, and health concerns are significant stressors. These four answers have been at the top of most survey results on stress and its causes for quite some time. Managers should pause when they realize that the workplace impacts all four of these, either directly or indirectly. Nonetheless, there are numerous differences between individuals and their sources of stress.
Individual factors
Individuals may have stressful commuting times to work or several stressful weeks assisting at a work function, but these are not the leading causes of stress at work. Glancing at more profound, extended stress, such as family stress, failing marriages, problems with children, or an ailing parent (Faisal et al., 2019). These are stressful conditions that a worker cannot abandon at home when they arrive at work. Financial stress, such as the failure to afford bills or an unforeseen demand on a person’s cash flow, can also disrupt an employee’s time at work. Finally, an individual’s personality may contribute to stress. People’s dispositions can also play a role in their stress levels.
Organization Factors
Roles or task demands contribute to a person’s stress at work. A thorough, weekly display to the company’s senior team could be demanding. A hectic role demand is when an individual is expected to complete more in a given amount of time than is feasible.
Interpersonal demands are stressors that coworkers create (Faisal et al., 2019). Perhaps an employee is having escalating conflict with a coworker with whom they are supposed to collaborate closely. Employees may need more social support for their responsibilities. Organizational structure refers to the degree of distinction within an institution, the number of laws and regulations, and the location of decision-making. Employees may experience stress if they cannot make decisions that impact them.
Organizational leadership refers to the organization’s leadership style, particularly its top management’s management style. Executives can create an atmosphere of tension, fear, and anxiety and apply unrealistic control and pressure. Employees may experience stress if they fear being fired for failing to meet the leadership’s standards. An organization’s life cycle includes birth, growth, maturity, and decline. Employees may find the birth and downturn of an organization particularly stressful, as these stages are often filled with excessive workload and uncertainty about the future.
Environmental Factors
Finally, there are stressors in the environment. The economic system may slump, causing uncertainty about job prospects and bank accounts. Political upheaval or change may be causing stress.
Finally, technology can be stressful because major innovations constantly render the current workforce obsolete, and employees fear being replaced by a computer system that can do the same thing (Faisal et al., 2019). Employees are also frequently expected to be connected to the place of work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because technology enables it.
Impacts of Stress on an Organization
Workplace stress is at an all-time high amid many health, financial, political, and other macrocrises. For many people, pressure has become so severe that it is not simply a personal matter that can be alleviated with a few “mental health” days away from work. Employees experiencing stress in the workplace have become overwhelmed, whether caused by sentiments of uneasiness, anxiety, depression, frustration, or any number of unwanted emotions. It considers the general level of requests, pressures, and uncertainties that harm ma employees and organizations.
Occupational stress can have a significant impact on workplace productivity and motivation. Concerns about job protection or requests for excessive work increase stress and contribute to various mental and physical ailments. If stress factors or stressful events are combined with inefficient or empathetic management, stress can spread throughout the department or company (Hasmi Abu Hassan Asaari & Mat Desa, 2021). Recognizing signs of organizational conflict is the first step in developing a problem-solving strategy. Some adverse effects of stressed-out employees on the organization are poor performance, adverse health effects, and employee turnover.
Poor Performance
Stress stifles creativity and can impair workers’ ability to perform well. Stress can make concentrating on intricate issues or problems challenging and impair memory (Ahad et al., 2021). One may need to complete essential tasks or perform a critical procedure step.
If employees do not believe management supports or encourages them, they may believe there is no reason for them to do their best work. Negativity, lack of enthusiasm, and apathy can all result from stress. Employees who feel this way may lose interest in doing an excellent job.
Negative Health Effects
Stress contributes to a wide range of health issues. High blood pressure, stomach upset, ulcers, headaches, irregular heartbeats, fatigue, perspiration, weight loss, diarrhea, nausea, lightheadedness, dry mouth, decreased appetite, sexual problems, neck stiffness, muscle aches, and back pain are some examples. When employees in an organization are stressed, they may feel tired, regardless of how much they sleep, or they may have difficulty sleeping at night (Kapoor, 2022). Poor emotional well-being can weaken the immune system, making the body more susceptible to colds and other diseases. These health issues may increase work absenteeism, health insurance utilization, and work-related accidents.
Employee Turnover
When organizational stress renders working for a company unpleasant, employees search for new jobs or consider retirement. Stress accounts for 40% of all employee turnover (Kapoor, 2022). A significant turnover rate can render it difficult for an organization to replace stressed employees. The absence of experienced workers can result in decreased output and increased costs associated with hiring, training, and retaining new employees. When prospective employees learn that the company’s workplace environment is stressful, it can be challenging to recruit new employees.
Stress Management
Managers may not be worried when employees endure average stress levels from the organization’s perspective. For this reason, higher employee performance may result from such functional stress levels. Nevertheless, excessive stress or modest levels sustained over time might result in decreased employee performance, necessitating management intervention (Adams & Blair, 2019). Although some stress may improve an employee’s performance, one should not count on individual staff to perceive the benefits. Even mild anxiety levels are likely to be interpreted negatively from the person’s perspective.
Therefore, it is common for management and employees to have differing ideas about the amount of stress appropriate in the workplace. What management may view as a motivating factor that keeps the adrenaline pumping is highly likely to be perceived by the individual as “extreme pressure.” While considering individual and organizational strategies for handling stress, it is essential to remember this.
Individual Approaches
Physical activity is one of the most common and efficiently implemented individual approaches. Physical exercise is any activity one can engage in to enhance or preserve their physical and overall health. It is also the best defense against stress and stress-related diseases in the United States.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, physical activity is any movement that improves one’s health. Physical activities can be divided into everyday activities (walking, cycling to work, conducting household chores, gardening) and active extracurricular opportunities (walking or cycling for recreation, dancing) or athletics (exercise and fitness) (Adams & Blair, 2019). Consistency is the most critical aspect of physical exercise for stress prevention and management.
An employee can be accountable for lowering stress levels. Successful personal strategies include implementing time-management tactics, boosting physical activity, learning relaxation techniques, and growing one’s social support system. Poor time management is a common problem (Gomathi & Rajeswari, 2021). The individual who is well organized can frequently do twice as much as the individual who is poorly organized, as the well-organized student. Therefore, people can more effectively handle the stress from their jobs by knowing and applying fundamental time management principles.
Several more often used time management guidelines include establishing daily lists of tasks to complete and ordering them according to significance and urgency. Moreover, scheduling tasks following the priorities set, being aware of one’s daily cycle, and completing the most challenging aspects of one’s work when one is attentive and productive help one manage time. Physicians have long advocated non-competitive physical activities like aerobics, walking, jogging, swimming, and cycling to manage severe high-stress levels (Gomathi & Rajeswari, 2021). These physical activities boost cardiac capacity, lower the heart rate while at rest, offer mental relief from work stresses, and allow one to relax and recharge.
People can learn to manage stress through relaxation techniques like biofeedback, hypnosis, and meditation. The goal is to achieve a deep state of relaxation where one feels emotionally and physically at ease but somewhat removed from their immediate surroundings and bodily sensations. Tension is released, and a person experiences a noticeable sense of serenity after relaxation for fifteen to twenty minutes each day.
Importantly, establishing the circumstances of profound relaxation causes noticeable changes in blood pressure, heart rate, and other physiological variables (Gomathi & Rajeswari, 2021). Talking to friends, relatives, or coworkers can help relieve tension when it becomes excessive. Consequently, increasing one’s social support network can help one de-stress. It gives an employee access to someone who will listen to their issues and offer a more impartial view of the situation.
Organizational Approach
Motivational aspects and employee satisfaction should be considered when developing tasks or transforming work within organizations. Employees are stressed as a result of this. As a result, when deciding the responsibilities of an organization’s staff, management should focus on the aspect that enhances work.
This component is primarily concerned with enhancing meaningful work factors and job requirements. It should include responsibility, autonomy, and acknowledgment of the potential for success, advancement, and development as substantive elements of work (Kassymova et al., 2018). Essential characteristics include a wide range of labor skills, tasks, the relevance of responsibilities, autonomy, and feedback. Employees are less stressed when tasks include the element of enrichment.
Management has control over a number of the variables that cause case stress, including job and role expectations. They are hence adaptable and changeable. Positive impact on individual sections, job placement, training, realistic goal setting, job redesign, and increased employee involvement.
Improved organizational communication, providing employee sabbaticals, and creating corporate wellness programs are strategies that management may want to consider for an effective workforce (Kassymova et al., 2018). Stress inside organizations is prevented and maintained via organizational tactics. There are two ways that businesses can support their staff in managing stress.
The first method involves developing tactics that limit stress-inducing variables. The second method involves several programs that help preserve employee welfare and serve as preventative measures (Hasmi Abu Hassan Asaari & Mat Desa, 2021). Every firm should place a high priority on stress management and staff well-being. These methods guarantee the well-being of workers within an organization, averting stress and unpleasant situations.
Flexible work scheduling is crucial in designing work (Kassymova et al., 2018). Thanks to flexible work planning, employees can choose their own operating time as long as they stay within the organization’s established parameters. Many workplaces allow employees to select their desired arrival and leave times as long as they put in an eight-hour day. These flexible arrival and departure times are often between 7 AM and 9 AM and 3 PM and 5 PM, respectively (Kassymova et al., 2018). Flexible design aims to increase employees’ self-control both at and outside work.
Concern for a favorable climate within the workplace is another intelligent method. As a result of rigidly structured levels and interactions between employees, many organizations have an insufficient, inflexible, and impersonal atmosphere. Employee productivity suffers, and tension is generated in such an environment. Such firms ought to adopt a more decentralized, employee-friendly organizational structure, as well as participative business decision-making and communication flows that go from the top to the bottom level of decision-making (Kim et al., 2021). One organizational strategy that can be utilized to maintain and prevent stress is employee stress management programs.
The most frequently used programs are those for health and welfare, assistance/help for employees, and stress management training for employees. Employees learn about various stress-reduction techniques in the programs, including relaxation, yoga, mindfulness, autogenic training, and lifestyle management (Kassymova et al., 2018). Their goal is to instruct people on stress reduction techniques that work.
Maintaining an employee’s physical and mental health is crucial since a healthy person can handle stress better than someone with phobias, nightmares, eating disorders, heart disease, or other medical conditions. Working remotely is another option that an organization must embrace to handle employees’ mental issues and stress effectively. According to Galanti et al. (2021), remote work can reduce commute-related stress when employees do not stay at an organization’s premises. Moreover, it has been found that working from home reduces workers’ stress while improving productivity by reducing colleagues’ distractions. Thus, remote working is an approach organizations should consider when managing stress and the mental health of their workforces.
Conclusion
Stress has emerged as one of the most prevalent issues in modern life. The need for stress management and prevention is becoming increasingly common. Although stress is not always negative, it is usually detrimental to an individual’s health and, as a result, their performance.
Workplace stress can come from a variety of sources. It could involve a demanding boss, obnoxious coworkers, defiant students, irate customers, hazardous working conditions, long commutes, and an unending workload. Stressors, including family relationships, finances, and a lack of sleep caused by anxieties and fears about the future, all impact employees’ work performance.
It is simpler to alter the circumstance or change one’s attitude toward it when dealing with the effects of stress. It should be noted that deterring stress is far easier than managing it, but stress management is a constant process and an essential aspect of a person’s daily life. Based on research, this paper divides stress management approaches into two categories: individual and organizational approaches.
Incompetent managers cause a slew of issues in the workplace. When these managers are allowed to stay or are endorsed, productivity and morale suffer. Understanding how a bad manager affects employees can assist management in identifying problematic supervisors whose actions are harmful to the organization.
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