Managing stress

Managing Workplace Stress : Sundry Concepts

While practitioners of psychology and academicians do not seem to have a consensus on the definition of stress there is clearly a growing consensus on the definition of stress as a psychological state with both cognitive and emotional components . Cox (1993 ) suggests that stress is caused by a number of reasons associated with work , and there now appears to be little doubt that one of the major adverse influences on job satisfaction and work performance and productivity , and absenteeism and turnover is the incident of stress at

work and are some of the key features of the stress process (Cooper , Dewe O`Driscoll , 2001

Guttman (1998 ) suggests that workplace stress may cause productivity losses through poor worker performance , increased absenteeism , diverted administrative and management time , poor morale , and increased staff turnover

Stressors

Numerous factors may be categorized as stressors . Factors which may be perceived as stressful by some individuals may not be similarly perceived by others . What determines whether something will be a stressor depends to a large extent on the important and the perceived degree of controllability of the situation . Very broadly , these stressors may be categorized into personal and organisational stressors (Cox , 1993

Personal stressors deal with non-work concerns such as family , intimate relationships , marriage , divorce , health issues , financial problems and raising children . Difficult and angry people may also serve as stressors because of the conflict they cause in our personal and work life (Hart Cooper , 2001 . Changes in our personal life can cause a great deal of stress in fact , numerous stressors compose our reactions to such changes . Fear is another factor that falls under personal stressors (Cooper Cartwright , 1997 Cox , 1993 . If we go out of the familiarity and comfort of a situation , either voluntarily or involuntarily , this causes us to experience stress . For people who thrive in the challenge and excitement of a new situation , this causes them to feel eustress - since they welcome the unpredictability of the situation (Hart Cooper 2001 . However , for majority of individuals , fear of the unknown causes negative stress (Cox , 1993

Occupational Stressors

Experience and age contribute to what individuals consider sources of stress . Individuals who have been on their own and in the workplace fulltime seem preoccupied with the stress that work brings Organisational stressors have been classified by Cordes Dougherty (1993 ) into job characteristics and organisational characteristics

Job Characteristics

Role Conflict

Role conflict occurs when work expectations and what one thinks he ought to be doing does not match up . For example , an employee who was hired as an assistant to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO ) of one particular organisation was informed upon hire that she would be handling such administrative duties as policy development , participating as an equal partner in management meetings and serving as a liaison between the CEO and the public . However , after she had been on the job for a while , she heard herself not only the CEO but other department heads being referred to as secretary . In fact , the...