Workplace Stress: An Article Analysis It is certainly a given that most people have jobs or careers that contribute to some level of stress in their life. It has been discovered, recently, that many people have a higher than normal amount of stress in their place of employment due to technology related issues. With technology booming many companies are jumping on the bandwagon and incorporating new and high tech programs to improve the quality and productivity of their business. Unfortunately many of these companies are implementing these new programs without giving the necessary tools their employees need to make the new programs work effectively. This has caused a great deal of stress in the workplace for all parties including upper level management, lower level management, employees and the IT department. In a study conducted by Athabasca University in Alberta Canada concluded that "only 20% of respondents believed that IT has not increased the stress levels of employees and only 27% thought that their organization manages the introduction of change brought about by IT very well" (Robinson, Irving & Carr, 2001, p.45). These numbers are staggering simply because implementing new technologies in the workplace are usually intended to decrease the workload and stress of the employees, not increase it. The most apparent problem that employees have with new technology is that they feel their jobs could have been performed better the old way, which was usually manually. The first issue that leads to employee stress usually stems from the very beginning of the change, the building of the program. Normally IT specialists are just that, specialists, and are very competent in performing their job duties, but everyone has a bad idea, or an idea that has not been carefully thought through, every once in awhile. It is a fact that these programs are not always thought out properly and are insufficient from the very beginning. Then when bad training, poor access to technical support and the inability to get errors fixed in a timely manner are factored in, it can be a recipe for disaster. The increase of workplace stress has caused many negative consequences in organizations today. In an article written in 2003, a study by the UK's Health and Safety Executive estimates that "work related stress accounts for more than a third of all new incidents of ill health, and that in the UK nearly thirteen million working days were lost to stress, depression, and anxiety in 2004-5" (Teed, 2006, p.
Shuttleworth, A., (2004). Managing workplace stress: how training can help. Industrial and Commercial Training, 36 (2), 61 – 65.
Ryan, D. & Watson, R. (2004). A healthier future; Workplace stress is increasingly recognized as a contributing factor to employee absence and illness. Investors in Health (IIH) is one response to the problem. Occupational Health, July 3, 2004, p. 20. Retrieved on October 21, 2004 from InfoTrac OneFile Database.
(AC 2)There are many causes of stress in the modern society due to the higher expectations and demands from different aspects of life. Work-related stress is one common cause of stress. People feel stressed out at their workplace for various reasons. For example, long working hours is one type of stressor because workers are overworked, which leads to...
Stress is stress involving work. Stress is defined in terms of its physical and physiological effects on a person, and can be a mental, physical or emotional strain. It can also be a tension or a situation or factor that can cause stress.[1] Occupational stress occurs when there is a discrepancy between the demands of the environment/workplace and an individual’s ability to carry out and complete these demands.[2] Often a stressor can lead the body to have a physiological reaction which can strain a person physically as well as mentally. One of the main causes of occupational stress is work overload. Occupational stress is a major hazard for many workers. Increased workloads, downsizing, overtime, hostile work environments, and shift work are
While technological innovations can provide increased opportunities for organizations and give them a competitive advantage, not all employees respond well to changes in their everyday workflow. When an organization updates its systems, it can face some resistance from employees, especially when the employees do not feel properly trained and lack the confidence in using the new system. Employees may grow frustrated and become less productive and efficient. In some extreme cases, technology can also replace some of their duties and make their positions obsolete, leaving them out of a job. This ties back to the need for job security. Technology has come a long way in the past 50 years and the types of challenges just mentioned are a lot more common in this day and age than they were before. Therefore, managers need to adapt to this changes in the work environment and find a way to satisfy their employees’ needs while increasing work performance and
The potential ramifications for the employer can be costly when employees succumb to internal and external stressors. To effectively combat job stress and develop a comprehensive stress management program, organizations must be cognizant of several areas that may be contributing factors to an employee’s stress level. Internally, organizations should review the employee’s workload and ensure that they have the necessary skills to complete the tasks they are expected to complete (Ornelas & Kleiner, 2003). They must also work to “motivate, challenge and take full advantage of the employee’s skills and abilities” (Ornelas & Kleiner, 2003). Employee’s job stress can also be decreased by allowing them take an active part in decisions, creating an atmosphere that facilitates a support network, and offering flexibility in their schedules that allows them to address responsibilities outside the workplace (Ornelas & Kleiner, 2003).
Work place or occupational stress refers to any form of restrain that is experienced when there is no match between job demands and the output of the worker. The article ‘Occupational stress’ aims at showing ways in which stress people get from their work place affect them and what causes the stress. This condition may encompass many conditions that include maladaptive behavior, psychological disorders, cognitive impairment, as well as emotional strain. These conditions lead to poor performances at work, injuries, or biological reactions that in turn may compromise the health of the employee.
Improving job satisfaction and productivity is an issue which is imperative among all employees and workplaces. There are various issues contributing to the decrease of job satisfaction including conflict, issues with pay, stress and workplace training. Low productivity rates and unsatisfied employees increase the risk for absenteeism and employee turnover. Occupational stress can often occur in the workplace, leading to an increased rate of ab...
Workplace stress and burnout is one of the leading problems in healthcare workers today. Stress is a mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances. Healthcare leaders today have to meet so many demanding needs and responsibilities. We ask why does stress and burnout play such an important role in today’s society. There are many reasons why it plays an important role in our everyday work and life. There have been studies on ways to detect, prevent, and decrease stress and burnout.
As the world becomes more and more developed, stress gradually becomes an unavoidable feature of modern society. “Stress is a dynamic condition is which an individual is confronted with an opportunity, demand, or resource related to what the individual desires and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important”. Stress occurs in a lot of events in our everyday life such as everyday events (suddenly sees a red light), exciting events (having a baby), scary events (watching a horror movie) and many more. Among the different types of stress, job stressors has been generally accepted as an universal phenomenon. Job stressors trigger problems for people both physiologically and psychologically. However, individual differences when they face a particular event to be a job stressors. Culture difference is one major factor that causes the individual differences. America, England, China and Japan are used for analyzing the different types of stress in western and eastern culture and their unique ways of coping the stress. Just like western culture, eastern culture also has a lot of stress among employees. China is one of most representative countries in eastern culture. While China becomes more and more universalized, China still contains its own Confucian culture. Since China has a special environment and culture, it causes unique types of stress compare to western culture. Those types of stress are mainly work demand stress and family demand stress. Work demands are psychological stress at the workplace, such as overloading of work; time shifts; complexity of work; and having conflict demands. Due to these work demand of stress, it damages employees’ both physical and psychological states (e.g., tension and anxiety...
Stress is an ongoing dilemma that occurs in each and everyone’s life. It is a factor that is undoubtedly a part of daily living. Due to the trivial problems that occur in people’s daily lives massive amounts of stress can arise. People perceive and manage stress in many different ways. The causes and effects of stress are numerous and one’s ability to manage stress is vital in maintaining healthy living.
Researchers examining technology adoption have argued that an organizational environment critically affects employees’ adoption and use of information technology. An organizational environment that supports innovation generally facilitates the learning and adjustment required for employees to understand and accept technology-induced changes (Tarafdar et al., 2010), thus reducing stress induced by new technology. The hypothesis were confirmed, For instance, in Korea, the use of smartphone message services in organizational processes means that employees are likely to experience increased stress in the form of messenger syndrome (Kim, 2015).
...change and stress by soliciting input from managers and employees making it more likely to produce comprehensive stress management strategies that can target the organization as well as the individual for change (Murphy, 1995). The issues of individual resistance to change, the potential sources of stress and consequences of change and stress on an organization have been addressed in this paper. For all that has been written about change and the effects of change, there is still so much more to be learned (Longenecker & Fink, 2001; Washington & Hacker, 2005). Future studies would profit from the use of additional measures to cross-validate findings of the relationships among workplace stress and organizational change (Vakola & Nikolaou, 2005). One can only hope that future questions about organizational change and stress management can continued to be answered.
Since people are always dealing with certain changes in their lives, they are always dealing with some type of stress. One of the biggest growing issues with stress is stress in the workplace. According to Northwestern National Life, one-fourth of employees view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives (“Stress at Work,” 1999).... ... middle of paper ...
Long – term stress can even require the brain, leaving you more vulnerable to anxiety, and depression; it can be a main cause of moodiness and frustration. Many of us are aware of the physical symptoms of stress-muscle pain, rapid breathing or an increased pulse. At the same time, they also suffer from emotional of stress which can be like roller coaster of highs or lows. emotional effects rang from emotional overeating to a feeling of being overwhelmed and pressure. stress impact many other components, which leads to difficulties in making decisions, loss sense humor, poorer concentration, negative thinking. As can be seen, stress nearly brings serious effects to people. Apart from the effects above, it can be the main reason which creates your decreased productivity at work. stress makes people less control their pace work, which leads to dissatisfaction. about 40% employees said that they are burned out because of work-related stress and loss $300 billion each year in the workplace . In addition, your relationship with people around also become worsens because of your stress. In fact, stress makes people puzzled and their life can undergo a considerable