2. What is organizational Stress? Briefly describe the strategies to cope with stress at individual and organizational levels.
Work-related stress is the response people may have when presented with work demands and pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities and which challenge their ability to cope. Stress occurs in a wide range of work circumstances but is often made worse when employees feel they have little support from supervisors and colleagues and where they have little control over work or how they can cope with its demands and pressures. There is often confusion between pressure or challenge and stress and sometimes it is used to excuse bad management practice. Pressure at the workplace is unavoidable due to the demands of the contemporary work environment.
Pressure perceived as acceptable by an individual, may even keep workers alert, motivated, able to work and learn, depending on the available resources and personal characteristics. However, when that pressure becomes excessive or otherwise unmanageable it leads to stress. Stress can damage your workers’ health and your business performance. Stress results from a mismatch between the demands and pressures on the person, on the one hand, and their knowledge and abilities, on the other. It challenges their ability to cope with work. This includes not only situations where the pressures of work exceed the worker’s ability to cope but also where the worker’s knowledge and abilities are not sufficiently utilized and that is a problem for them. A healthy job is likely to be one where the pressures on employees are appropriate in relation to their abilities and resources, to the amount of control they have over their work, and to the support they receive from people who matter to them. As health is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity but a positive state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, a healthy working environment is one in which there is not only an absence of harmful conditions but an abundance of health promoting ones.
These may include continuous assessment of risks to health, the provision of appropriate information and training on health issues and the availability of health promoting organisational support practices and structures. A healthy work environment is one in which staff have made health and health promotion a priority and part of their working lives.
Poor work organisation, that is the way we design jobs and work systems, and the way we manage them, can cause work stress. Excessive and otherwise unmanageable demands and pressures can becaused by poor work design, poor management and unsatisfactory working conditions. Similarly, these things can result in workers not receiving sufficient support from others or not having enough control over their work and its pressures.
Research findings show that the most stressful type of work is that which values excessive demands and pressures that are not matched to workers’ knowledge and abilities, where there is little opportunity to exercise any choice or control, and where there is little support from others. The more the demands and pressures of work are matched to the knowledge and abilities of workers, the less likely they are to experience work stress. The more support workers receive from others at work, or in relation to work, the less likely they are to experience work stress. The more control workers have over their work and the way they do it and the more they participate in decisions that concern their jobs, the less likely they are to experience work stress.
Most of the causes of work stress concern the way work is designed and the way in which organisations are managed. Because these aspects of work
What causes work stress?
1. Stress-related Hazards.
2. Work Content.
3. Job Content.
a. Monotonous, under-stimulating, meaningless tasks
b. Lack of variety
c. Unpleasant tasks
b. Lack of variety
c. Unpleasant tasks
d. Aversive tasks
4. Workload and Work pace:
a. Having too much or too little to do
b. Working under time pressures
b. Working under time pressures
5. Working Hours:
a. Strict and inflexible working schedules
b. Long and unsocial hours
c. Unpredictable working hours
d. Badly designed shift systems
b. Long and unsocial hours
c. Unpredictable working hours
d. Badly designed shift systems
6. Participation and Control
a. Lack of participation in decision making
b. Lack of control (for example, over work methods,
:
7.Career Development, Status and Pay
a. Job insecurity
b. Lack of promotion prospects
c. Under-promotion or over-promotion
d. Work of ‘low social value’
e. Piece rate payments schemes
f. Unclear or unfair performance evaluation systems
g. Being over-skilled or under-skilled for the job
8. Role in the Organisation
a. Unclear role
b. Conflicting roles within the same job
c. Responsibility for people
d. Continuously dealing with other people and their problems
9. Interpersonal Relationships
a. Inadequate, inconsiderate or unsupportive supervision
b. Poor relationships with co-workers
c. Bullying, harassment and violence
d. Isolated or solitary work
e. No agreed procedures for dealing with problems or complaints
10. Organisational Culture
a. Poor communication
b. Poor leadership
c. Lack of clarity about organisational objectives and structure
11. Home-Work Interface
a. Conflicting demands of work and home
b. Lack of support for domestic problems at work
c. Lack of support for work problems at home
The effects of work stress on individuals Stress affects different people in different ways. The experience of work stress can cause unusual and dysfunctional behaviour at work and contribute to poor physical and mental health. In extreme cases, long-term stress or traumatic events at work may lead to psychological problems and be conductive to psychiatric disorders resulting in absence from work and preventing the worker from being able to work again. When under stress, people find it difficult to maintain a healthy balance between work and non- work life. At the same time, they may engage in unhealthy.
The effects of work stress:
Become increasingly distressed and irritable
Become unable to relax or concentrate
Have difficulty thinking logically and making decisions
Enjoy their work less and feel less committed to it
Feel tired, depressed, anxious
Have difficulty sleeping
Experience serious physical problems
Become unable to relax or concentrate
Have difficulty thinking logically and making decisions
Enjoy their work less and feel less committed to it
Feel tired, depressed, anxious
Have difficulty sleeping
Experience serious physical problems
The effects of work stress on organisations If key staff or a large number of workers are affected, work stress may challenge the healthiness and performance of their organisation. Unhealthy organisations do not get the best from their workers and this may affect not only their performance in the increasingly competitive market but eventually even their survival.
strategies to cope with stress at individual and organizational levels.
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"Stress!" Even the word can send shivers down your spine. Most of us live in a world where stressors of all sorts come at us daily - stress at work, stress at home, and stress all around us. We constantly are bombarded when we walk through the door at work, when we go on-line, when we drive through traffic, or when we turn on the TV or radio.
Organizational stress management programs abound, and a growing body of research has given us insight into the causes and potential antidotes for stress. Yet, stress has not gone away. Far from it! Most indicators of mental health in the United States September 11, 2001 ,
the mental health of the United States
to the "volume" of stress a person perceives and experiences. Consider "Joe Worker." On a typical work day, he may wake up worrying about money. After fighting commuter traffic, he has a hard day at work (perhaps harder than usual due to a recent reorganization or cost-cutting program). He listens to some disturbing news on the radio on the way home, unwinds with a few drinks, and then goes to
bed having just watched more bad news on TV. Not a pretty picture! What to do? An organization only can do so much. Work stress is only part of the problem. But, in many cases, a significant part -- and a part that potentially is changeable through workplace interventions. Some stress clearly can be traced to individual factors (e.g., personality, social support, coping skills), and not some organizational culprit. People vary quite a bit in terms of how much stress they can withstand, how much they let it get to them, and how much they may transmit it to those around them. Research has shown a number of factors to be important in our capacity to tolerate stress. The same individual factors discussed in a 1986 Training and Development article (Nowack, K. “Who are the hardy?”) still ring true today. People who are committed to meaningful goals, who see problems as challenges, and who experience a sense of control (the 3 “C’s”) are buffered against the effects of
stress. A fourth “C,” connection to others also has been shown to mitigate the effects of stress. For the most part, an organization can do little to modify or change these individual factors (except perhaps more rigorous recruitment and selection practices that screen those especially susceptible to stress, or those who are known carriers of stress).
Besides an individual's personality, emotional predisposition or coping skills, there are many organizational sources of stress. In fact, recent research by Organizational Performance Dimensions suggests that without addressing organizational sources of stress, individual stress management programs usually are ineffective with respect to productivity and quality of worklife outcomes.
Furthermore, a recent study by Marketdata, a Tampa , FL
Organisational culture:
Organisational culture is one of the key factors in determining how successful an organization will be in managing work stress. Organisational culture is reflected in the attitudes of staff, their shared beliefs about the organisation, their shared value systems and common and approved ways of behaving at work. Organisational culture also concern show problems are recognized and solved. It can affect what is experienced as stressful, how that experience translates into health difficulties, how both stress and health are reported and how the organization responds to such reports. Employers, managers and trade union representatives must therefore become aware of the culture of an organisation, and explore it in relation to the management of work stress. If necessary, these parties must engage in culture change activities as an important aspect of improving the management of stress at work.
Resources for managing work stress All employers should carefully consider the systems that they have in place for assessing, preventing and otherwise managing work stress. You must be aware of your organisation’s systems and resources for managing stress. Internal resources may include occupational health services, human resource management (personnel), training departments or other individuals with responsibility for staff well-being and health. Individual problems which are complex, difficult and not manageable internally, are best dealt with by a counselling psychologist, clinical psychologist, counsellor, or an occupational physician who may consult with a general practitioner or other specialist functions as deemed necessary. Identification of any groups at risk within your organisation is crucial and should accompany the examination of available organisational resources for managing work stress.
Work stress is a real challenge for workers and their employing organisations. As organisations and their working environment transform, so do the kinds of stress problems that employees may face. It is important that your workplace is being continuously monitored for stress problems. Further, it is not only important to identify stress problems and to deal with them but to promote healthy work and reduce harmful aspects of work. Work in itself can be a self-promoting activity as long as it takes place in a safe, development – and health – promoting environment. Successful employers and managers provide leadership in dealing with the challenge of work stress.
Stress can be minimized by following methods also
1. Ask employees to attend classes on relaxation, time management, assertiveness training or exercise. Ergonomics and Environmental Design.
2. Improve equipment used at work and physical working conditions. Management development
3. Improve managers’ attitudes towards dealing with work stress, their knowledge and understanding of it and their skills to deal with the issue as effectively as possible.
4. Organisational Development implement better work systems and management systems. Develop a more friendly and supportive culture.
5. An individual worker’s problems and the solutions to those problems should be discussed with the worker, described and agreed.
6. Timing of such discussions may depend on worker’s state of well- being.
7. Possible interventions, both individual (e.g. training, medical treatment, counselling) and organisational (e.g. job re-design, changes in management practices) should be planned, implemented and evaluated.
8. Careful records should be kept, and progress evaluated. Records should be accurate, deal with facts and points of evidence.
9. Opinions and judgements should not be represented as facts. Proposed actions and the reasons for their selections should be agreed where possible and recorded.
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