Stress in the workplace

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Stress in the workplace
Stress can affect anyone anywhere and it is present everyday both in our private lives and in the workplaces. Employees in business organizations and government bodies can all be affected by stress and one has to ensure stress does not interfere with performance of his or her work. This paper is going to discuss on stress in the workplace and how to manage work-related stress. The paper also discusses the ways in which employees react differently to situations that may lead to stress.
As Sean McPheat (9) has observed, many employees already have a given amount of stress in their lives outside work, and they face even more stress as a result of pressures from work. McPheat adds that the levels of stress increases during hard economic times and that the way we handle stress conditions can determine whether we succeed or not in our jobs (9).
Dewe and O’Driscoll (143-165) indicate that workplace stress is a major issue in most companies worldwide and that workplace stress is the negative physical and emotional responses, which happen when work related demands surpass an employee’s capabilities, needs or resources. Stress at workplace has a major impact on an employee’s ability to conduct his or her tasks and assignments. A stressed employee becomes less productive in his or her duties and has higher chances of making mistakes. This is because stress affects the employee’s emotional, physical as well as mental health. McPheat (9) asserts that excessive stress is harmful not only to our health but also to the workplace. An organization should have an effective stress management technique since if left unchecked, increase in stress can lead to absenteeism, disability, injury while on the job, ineffective communication as well as bad relationships at the work place.
According to McPheat (9), stress is a natural and physical occurrence to our perceptions of a stimulus. It is an in-built condition since humans have a psychological and physical stress reaction when they encounter a perceived threat, be it real or not. Some of the main causes of work-related stress are job expectations that are not clear as well as pressures to be punctual at work all the time. Moreover, many people are unable to balance work and life and this adds to the stress load. This is mostly evident among female employees who are the main caretakers of their children and their elderly relatives. Dewe and O’Driscoll state that many stress intervention efforts do not work out as expected since managers are not always involved in the intervention process (143-165). With all the negative effects of stress ranging from emotional to health effects, one can also be motivated to work when he or she is under stress, so long as the stress is within the right degree and doesn’t cause job strain (McPheat, 19).
McPheat (19) identified various kinds of situations that could ...