Stress in the Workplace

Roles of Stress in the Workplace Performance

Literature Review

The modern society emphasizes more on the careers and works of other people. This has been heavily featured on in the United States. As a result of this, there has been an emergence of quit a number of professionals who are struggling with stress that is related to their places of work. In fact, so many have to handle stress at the workplace on a daily basis. You should imperatively bear in mind that although stress may sound beneficial to a person, high level of it can have adverse impacts on the emotional wellbeing, physical health and job performance of an individual. An estimated 69% of US workforce has reported that work is a main source of stress. 41% of the respondents pointed out that they are usually stressed out and tensed during normal working days (Jourdain, 2013).

Pandey et al (2011) says that, stress has been identified as being very problematic in the place of work. According to a 2011 study, the US industry lost more than $300 billion in costs that are linked to stress. These are costs that were acquired from insurance, legal and medical expenses, employee turnover, absenteeism, and low productivity. Stress has been linked to the decline in the productivity of employees. Many people in the workplace experience stress from different aspects of their lifestyles. Stress may be acquired from personal matters, finances, family and other issues are not generally work-related. However, work is also a major cause of stress for employees. These are workers who deal with a lot of stress in their lives that is significantly demonstrated in their job performance. In fact, the impact is well reflected on the overall performance of a company (Pandey et al, 2011).

The effects of stress in the workplace performance are very significant. Jourdain Vezina (2013) points out that 51% of US employees say that they experienced high levels of stress which is linked to extreme fatigue and a feeling of lack of control in the processes of the workplace. Almost half of the total US employees have also reportedly been missing a day or two from work as a result of stress-related issues. On the other hand, an estimated 46% have also stated that they reported to work for about four days every year when they were too stressed out to effectively perform in their places of work. The major causes of stress have been identified as workplace personal issues, trying to juggle between personal life and work, and also lack of job security (Jourdain & Vezina, 2013).

The role of stress in the workplace performance has on many occasions been highlighted in the different aspects of the workplace. It is important to note that despite the fact that most of the effects are negatively inclined, there are certain positive impacts of stress in job performance. One of them is time management. This is one of the impacts that have both positive and negative results to the employees. On the positive side, stress has the effect of stirring up the adrenalin of an employee and this leads to motivation on their part to perform even much better towards beating deadlines. However, this occurs at the expense of the quality of work that the employees are able to deliver when under pressure. A lot of demands, lack of peer support, and overwhelming loads of work have notably been highlighted to have negative impacts on the performance of employees. This may frustrate workers and send them into panic. If this kind of environment prevails over a period of time, workers may start to exit the company. This will in turn cost the organization due to the high rates of employee turnover (Maudgalya, 2006).

The other impact of stress is the formation of relationships within the workplace. Stress can adversely affect interactions in the place of work. Since stress is linked to job burn-out, it brings in a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness on the workforce. This can ensure that workers are unable to interact efficiently and form meaningful relationships within the place of work. It hinders the ability of workers to work collectively as a team, thereby creating problems to the organizations when it comes to achieving their objectives and goals. The negative impact of stress on the creation of meaningful relationships is acquired from resentment, depression, jealousy, defensiveness and paranoia with regards to work security. This also impacts low self esteem and employees may even opt out of collective activities within the company (Pandey, 2011).

Stress can also negatively affect the ability of employees to focus. Workers who are usually working under stressful conditions may find it challenging to remember things that they already know. These employees will also find it hard to process new information when it comes to learning new things that are related to work. This can adversely impact an individual’s performance. Lack of focus has led several companies to incur huge losses as a result of aspects like accidents at the workplace. The fact that stress causes loss of focus also signifies that organizations may also fail to meet their goals. Employees may not find it easy to concentrate on the tasks that they have at hand, which could hinder the customers from obtaining the satisfaction that is required. This in turn may lead to a significant decline of the organization (Maudgalya, 2006).

 References

Jourdain, G., & Vézina, M. (2013). How psychological stress in the workplace influences presenteeism propensity: A test of the Demand–Control–Support model. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, pp. 1-14.

Maudgalya, T., Wallace, S., Daraiseh, N., & Salem, S. (2006). Workplace stress factors and ‘burnout’among information technology professionals: A systematic review. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 7(3), 285-297.

Pandey, A., Quick, J. C., Rossi, A. M., Nelson, D. L., & Martin, W. (2011). 11 Stress and the Workplace: 10 Years of Science, 1997–2007. The Handbook of Stress Science: Biology, Psychology, and Health, 137.