27 Work Stress-I

DR.Geeta Sachdev

1.  Learning Objectives:

Basic objectives of this module are:

To understand the meaning of Stress

To know the different sources and various types of work stress To know the various stages of work stress

2. Introduction

In today’s changing scenario stress level is rising equally in workers as well as the managers. Due to this work stress, more and more employees are viewing symptoms of unceasing exhaustion and burnout. Research has proved that stressed out employees are not fine for their organizations. In the majority of circumstances, stress directs to decrease efficiency in even the best of individuals, which in turn directs to decrease productivity. Hence, it becomes very vital to include “work stress” as one of the chapters in studying human behaviour.

Meaning and definitions

Form individual point of view, stress is our body’s physical, mental and chemical responses to circumstances that scare, puzzle, imperil or annoy us. If controlled, it is a friend that fortifies us for the subsequent encounter. If handled badly, it becomes a rival which can cause diseases like blood pressure, ulcer, asthma and overactive thyroid. According to medical explanation of the term “stress is the body’s general response to environmental situations.”

Stress  is  a  vigorous  state  in  which  a  person  is  confronted  with  an  opportunity, restraint, or demand connected to what he/she needs and for which the outcome is observed to be both unsure and vital. Typically, stress is related with constraints and demands.

The former stops us from doing what we desire.

The second refers to the loss of something desired.

Two conditions are required for potential stress to be real stress.

There must be vagueness over the result, and the result must be imperative.

Only when there is suspicion or vagueness regarding whether the opportunity will be seized, the constraint removed, or the loss avoided that there is stress.

Significance is also important. If the results are trivial to the individual— there is no stress.

Stress is not essentially bad in and of itself. Individuals frequently eustress optimistically to rise to the occasion and perform at or near their maximum.

Stress is not just anxiety: stress may be escorted by anxiety, but two are not the same. Anxiety is psychological and emotional while stress operates in the physiological sphere also along with the psychological sphere.

3. Sources of stress

There are both eustress and distress that arise from our work and non-work lives. According to Near, Nice and Hunt in 1980, by Sekaran in 1986 and by many others, that the work and non-work domains of one’s life are intimately interconnected. Therefore, if one practices much distress at work, that stress will be carried over to the home, which will augment the sense of awareness of even small distresses in experienced in family sphere. Therefore, we can say that stress generates from following sources:

A) Extra-organizational stressors

B) Organizational Stressors

C) Group Stressors

D) Individual Stressors

A) Extra Organizational Stressors: work stress is not limited to things that happen inside the organization, during the working hours. Extra organizational factors also enhance to work stress. These stressors include the subsequent features:

Political Factors: These factors are likely to cause stress in nations which suffer from political uncertainties.

Economic Factors: Variations, in business cycles produce economic uncertainties. When the economy diminish, persons get disturbed about their own security. Small slump also produces stress in the work force as descendant swings in the economy are recurrently accomplished by lasting decline in the work force, temporary lay-off or decline in the pay.

Technological factors: Technological insecurity can also create stress. In today’s situation of technological development new innovations build an employees’ skill &experience outmoded in a very short period of time.

B) Organizational Stressors:

In organizations, there is no shortage of factors which can produce stress. Around every aspect of work can be a stressor for somebody. Although there are many factors in the work environment that have some effect on the degree of stress that individuals experience at the job, the subsequent factors are main in rousing up the stress:

1) Job related Factors: job related factors or task demands are related to the job done by an These factors include the following:

 If a job is too monotonous, boring or dull or happens to be too challenging in terms of frequent transfers or consistent travelling, which bounds the time he or she can devote with his or her family, the employee is likely to experience stress.

A lot of jobs also are hazardous or morally contradictory to the employee who interfaces with it, working in an explosive manufacturing plant for the person who is follower of peace. Due to scarcity of other job opportunities, he might be forced to work in this environment & this might be a steady source of persistent stress.

Some duties &accountabilities have essential stress like those of the fire fighter or police squadrons which defuses bombs.

Jobs where temperatures, sound or other working conditions are dangerous can enlarge nervousness.

The more interdependence among an individual’s tasks &the tasks of others, the more possible stress there is. Independence, on the other side tends to reduce stress.

Security  is  one  extra  task  demand  that  can  produce  stress.  Someone  in  a comparatively secure job is not likely to worry excessively about losing that position.

Another task demand stressor is excess of work. Overload happens when an individual has more work to do than he can handle.

2) Role related stressors: These stressors associated with pressures put on an employee as a function of the specific role he or she performs in the organization. Persons can experience the subsequent role related stressors:

Role Conflict: It occurs when two or more individuals have different& sometimes conflicting anticipations of a given employee. Thus, there are two or more sets of burdens on the employee so that it is not possible to satisfy all of them. Another kind of role conflict is the inter-role conflict where an employee performs more than one role at the similar time in his life & the demands of these roles fight with each other.

Role Ambiguity: Stresses form job uncertainty happens when an individual does not know what is expected of him or her or how to go about doing the job.

Role Overload: It states to the condition when an employee is expectable to do many things within a restricted time as a portion of the everyday routine.

Inter Personal and Group Related Factors: Interpersonal demands are burdens created by other employees. Group related stressors comprise issues like conflicts, poor communication, offensive relationships & fear of being disliked from the group as a respected member.

3) Organizational Structural Stressors: It clarifies the level of separation, the amount of rules &regulations and where decisions are made. Many rules &absence of involvement in decisions that affect the employees are examples of structural variables that may be probable stressors.

4) Organizational Leadership Factor: These factors signify the managerial style of the organization’s senior managers. Some managers produce a culture characterised by apprehension, anxiety and nervousness. They set up unreasonable pressures to carry out in the short span of time, impose tremendously tight controls and regularly fire workers who fail to do the same.

5) Organization’s life Style: Organization moves through a cycle. They are established; they nurture, become mature and lastly turn down. An organization’s life cycle produces different problems and pressures for the employees. The first & the last stage are stressful.

6) Long hours and increased demands-This happens due to inflated technology and anticipations that employees will be available to answer e-mail on weekends and evenings. As a result of this extra work time, employees find a smaller amount of time to attach in free time &domestic activities like grocery shopping & cleaning.

7) Being treated unfairly-Workplace matters like harassment &mistreatment can source employee to feel stress at workplace. Extra matters like feeling ignored for promotions can also produce work stress. In strong cases, perceived workplace unfairness can result in violence.

8) Little or no acknowledgment or reward-Employee can feel stress when they observe that they are not being recognised for the work they carry out. This form of workplace stress can source people to become withdrawn, apathetic, or unclear on being productive for the organization.

9) Lack of control-Micromanagement- The extreme control of work particulars by a supervisor. It mentions to the extreme control of work particulars by a supervisor. Such as, a micromanager might ask an employee precise tasks should be done on in a given day and give exact commands on how those tasks should be attained. This form of situation can generate stress, as the employee feels he or she has slight control of their own work.

10) Lack of job security-It creates stress upon the employees who had to leave and for those workers who stay. Those employees who have been laid off might experience financial hardship, and the workers who haven’t been laid off might essential to perform additional work & could suffer from physical issues even if their jobs were not removed. A lot of stressors caused by layoffs can contain augmented workloads, enlarged nervousness, and lower morale.

11) Office politics-Dealing with complicated-workers or supervisors and unlike personalities can generate stress at work. Conflicts, differences, and misinterpretations are common in today’s place of work, especially with the usage of technology. All of these factors, which we call workplace politics, can generate stress, which results in lost sleep, efficiency, and inspiration—evidently affecting our capability to relate to others.

Sourcehttps://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAKYAAAAJDFiOTBjMTZjLWM0M2EtNDIxNS04NTQyLWFlYmY1YzA1YWU3Mg.jpg

C)  Group Stressors

Another source of stress in the organization is poor interactive relationships or conflicts. These conflicts can be among the employees of the group or amid the superiors & subordinates. Groups have a great influence on the employee’s behaviour, performance & job satisfaction. On the other side, group can also be a possible source of stress. Group stressors can be categorised into the subsequent factors:

1) Group Cohesiveness: Group cohesiveness is very vital for the employees, mostly at the lower level of the organization. Lack of cohesiveness can be very stress creating, mainly for those employees who cannot flourish in loneliness.

The other side of picture is that excessive cohesiveness can also lead to stress. Because extended interaction with other people can also cause stress.

2) Lack of Social Support: These factors include friendliness, reverence from other employees and self-respect, support, opportunity to act together, attainment, defence against threats and a feeling of security.

3) Conflicts: employees who are working in the organizations are likely to have interpersonal and intergroup conflicts. When conflict has dysfunctional consequences, it will lead to stress in all the concerned parties.

4) Organizational Climate: A general organizational climate might have a calm style of working or it might be nervous& crisis oriented. All the employees of such organization will be ceaselessly anxious, if the climate in overall is unfriendly, unfavourable or entirely task oriented.

D) Individual Stressors: Next are the main factors which can create stress to individuals:

1) Job Concerns: One of the main job concerns is lack of job safety which can lead to worry, tenseness or frustration to the individual. Career advancement is one more reason of worry.

2) Career Changes: When an employee has to change place geologically because of transfer or promotion, it distresses the routine of his daily life causing anxiety and stress.

3) Financial Problems: Some persons are very poor money managers or they have needs and requirements that all the time appear to go beyond their earning capability. When a person go too far their financial resources, it will continuously cause stress.

4) Changes in Life Structures: The life structure of an individual changes as he matures older. As an individual grows older, his accountabilities to himself as well as others change and increase. More the accountability, larger the stress.

5) The Pace of Life: As the accountabilities of individual augment, his capability to carry out them should also increase. A chaotic pace of life when the individual is continuously busy in business or otherwise can create more stress than a tranquil pace of life.

6) Life Change and Traumas: Unforeseen changes are extremely stressful. A life trauma is any disturbance in a person’s life that changes his or her attitudes, emotions &behaviours.

7) Personality of Person: The amount of stress is also observed by the personality of a person. In respect of personality the difference between Type A and Type B behaviour patterns become relevant. Type A personalities may generate stress in their work environment due to their achievement orientation, intolerance and perfectionism. Type B personality, on the other hand is less stress inclined.

8)Regular challenges: Getting trapped in can be instances of things that create stress in our personal lives. Most of us have the proficiencies to handle with these routine stresses. However, many these types of stressors in one day can put up& source key issues at work or in our personal life.

9)Work-life balance: Each one does various roles in their life. The characters of mother or father, boss, employee, spouse, sister, or brother have their own special demands that might produce stress at home and at work. When persons have challenges at work, it can affect their roles at home & vice versa. Although many organizations inspire a work-life balance and create a culture that allows employees to have a “home life.

10)Financial issues: Harsh economic times, combined with growing costs of fuel & other living expenditures, generate vast stress on persons and families. Not having sufficient money to purchase elementary needs and lacking the capability to purchase the wants can lead to nervousness, strain, and depression. These emotions can carry over into our work life, resultant in dropped productivity and dropped human relations with our co-workers.

11)Friends and family issues: Challenges with family, in-laws, and friends generate a big source of stress as well. While many of us depend on friends &family for support, pressure and differences can create stress.

4. Stages of Stress

Once under the influence of a stressor, people’s bodies respond in amazingly similar, predictable ways. For example, when asked to give a speech for a class, your heart rate may increase, your throat may become dry, your palms may sweat, and you may feel lightheaded, dizzy, and nauseous. If an individual lost her or his job or discovered that her or his partner wanted to terminate their relationship, she or he might experience similar sensations. It is clear that different stressors are able to evoke common physical reactions.

Selye stated that the human body moves through three stages when confronted by stressors, as follows.

1) Alarm Stage

Once exposed to any event that is perceived as threatening or dangerous, the body right away prepares for difficulty, entering what Selye called the alarm stage. These automatic changes are controlled by the hormonal and the nervous systems, and they trigger the fight or flight response. For example, someone realize that the final exam you thought was today was actually scheduled for yesterday. You may begin to experience fear, panic, anxiety, anger, depression, and restlessness.

2) Resistance Stage

The second stage of a response to a stressor is the resistance stage, during which the body attempts to re-establish its equilibrium or internal balance. The body is geared for survival, and because staying in the alarm stage for a prolonged amount of time is not conducive for the body’s optimal functioning, it will resist the threat or attempt to resolve the problem and reduce the intensity of the response to a more manageable level. Specific organ systems, such as the cardiovascular and digestive systems, become the focus of the body’s response. During this phase, you might take steps to calm yourself down and relieve the stress on your body: you might deny the situation, withdraw and isolate yourself from others, and shut down your emotions. Thus, in the previous example, you may not tell anyone about missing the exam, may tell yourself that you don’t care about that class anyway, and go back to bed.

3) Exhaustion Stage

Our capability to go from the alarm stage to a less damaging resistance stage decides the effect that the stressor has on our physical and psychological health. As we get more control and balance is re-established, we can start to recover from the stress. The span of time, the energy, and the attempt required to achieve recovery decides how exhausted our body becomes as a consequence of the stressor. No doubt, the longer the body is under stress and out of balance, the more negative the effect will be on your body. Long term exposure to a stressor or dealing with many stressors at the same time often results in overloading our system. Specific organs and body systems that were called on during the resistance stage may not be able to resist a stressor indefinitely. When all the psychological and physical resources we rely on to deal with stress are used up, an exhaustion stage results, and the stress producing hormones such as adrenaline increase again. This is when chronic and serious illnesses can begin to expand, and the individual may even build up clinical depression.

5. Types of Stress

There are four types of stress as under:

a.The first type of stress is called acute stress the most common type of stress &usually originates from demands & pressures of the past &upcoming demands. For instance, assume we have a hectic day. We have to drop our child at school, halt by the bank, go to class, take a test, get an oil change, drive home through traffic, and cook dinner. A hectic day like this can generate stress, but it is short term, because maybe tomorrow we are less hectic or are observing forward to the weekend where we don’t have as much to do. Each individual experiences this form of stress. Acute stress is a laundry list of the things we have to do or a list of the things that didn’t go right. For instance, if our car breaks down on the way to the bank, this generates a definite quantity of acute stress, but when the car is fixed there is no stress related with it.

b. Episodic acute stress: it can be a more severe in comparison of acute stress; the individual feels stress on regular basis &hardly gets release. It is a more grave form of acute stress. The individual who suffers from episodic acute stress feels stressed incessantly with minor relief.

c. Chronic stress: It is long-term stress where individuals find little way out of a state. It is the form of stress that occurs month after month, year after year. Sometimes, chronic stress begins with shocking experiences like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or childhood experiences. In others, chronic stress can happen in response to routine stressors that are overlooked or not handled well. For instance, someone might have episodic acute stress, but over the period of time, this may become chronic stress. With this form of stress, the individual has given up looking for resolutions to the stress and inclines to just live with it. For instance, take a couple who is very unhappy in their relationship. While at one point in time in their relationship they might have practiced acute stress when quarrelling, it could have revolved into episodic acute stress as the quarrelling happened more frequently. Then when that form of stress was continuous for a longer time, it became chronic stress. It becomes chronic because the couple took no steps to patch up their relationship.

d. All stress as negative, but some forms of stress can actually cause us to challenge ourselves & work at a higher level. This form of stress—positive stresses benefit us to attain at a higher level—is called eustress. It can stimulate us to touch goals.

6. Consequences of Stress: Stress is not inevitably bad for employees or their work performance. It is the dysfunctional facet of the high level of stress that is a major concern.

1) Consequences for the Individual:

a) Physiological Symptoms: In the early stages, the main concern of stress was directed at physiological signs. The reason was that this topic was researched by expert in the health and medical sciences. As per the researchers high degrees of stress are usually escorted by severe nervousness, aggravation and depression.

b) Psychological Symptoms:

It can cause dissatisfaction- It can cause job related dissatisfaction.

High level of stress might be escorted by annoyance, anxiety, depression, nervousness, irritability, strain or tediousness.

It may lead to poor job performance, lower self-esteem, inability to concentrate.

c) Behavioural symptoms: It may include:

Under eating or Overeating Insomnia

Augmented Smoking or Drinking Drug Abuse

Losing sense of humour

Moving in tense and jerky way Absenteeism and turnover

Decrease in productivity

2) Consequences for the Family:

a) In the dual career families where both the spouses are pursuing careers, a lot of personal promises, varied in nature are demanded from them.

b) Additional stresses are experienced while handling the personal, social and cultural dilemma of matching work and family, fulfilling parenting responsibilities, handling competition at the work place.

3) Consequences for the Organizations: These include:

Low performance and productivity

High rate of absenteeism and turnover

Loss of customers due to poor attitude of workers Increased estrangement of the employees from job Negative and violent behaviours

7. Summary

Stress is adaptive answers to a situation that is observed as challenging or threatening to an individual ‘swell-being. Distress describes high stress levels that have negative consequences, whereas eustress describes the moderately low stress levels needed to activate people. The stress experience, called the general adaptation syndrome, involves moving through three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. The stress model shows that stress is caused by stressors. However, the effect of these stressors depends on individual characteristics. Stress affects a person’s physiological and psychological well-being, and is associated with several work-related behaviours. Stressors are the causes of stress and include any environmental conditions that place a physical or emotional demand on the person. Stressors are found in the physical work environment, the employee’s various life roles, interpersonal relations, and organizational activities and conditions. Conflicts between work and non-work obligations are a common basis of employee stress.

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