Work-Related Stress

I can remember hearing people make fun of traditions of other cultures and peoples who take time to relax during the middle of the day. How can they waste their time like that? No wonder they can’t keep up with us! Ha! Ha! Maybe we are the ones wasting time. Shorting our lives by not finding the right rhythm for living. Work is just that! Work! Some of us are fortunate enough to enjoy the work that we do, but it is still work. For most of us it is something we do out of necessity and it takes time away from the other things that we would rather be doing. Enjoying the kind of work that you do is important but it is not the only factor that impacts on your level of work-related stress. A degree of work-related stress should be expected – after all it is work! In fact, the right measure and kind of work-related stress can and should be beneficial to the entire company serving to motivate, inspire, encourage, and facilitate work-related performance and job satisfaction at all levels. The problem comes in when companies undermine the systemic health of their organizations by first, failing to give adequate consideration to the toxic nature of work-related stress; and second, failing to provide their employees with opportunities to participate in stress mitigation activities on the job. Both employers and employees should be mindful of these sources of work-related stress.

Poor Work Conditions
Work conditions range from a comfortable chair and good lighting in an office to the proper equipment and facilities on a work site. Job expectations in relationship to the organization, management, and supervision of the work are also a part of the work conditions. Trying to meet high performance expectations under poor work conditions is like trying to squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle – if you get my drift. It is stressful for everyone associated with the process. Who in an organization knows better what work conditions frustrate them in the performance of their jobs than the people doing the jobs? Companies that fail to seek and address suggestions coming from the production level of their organization are wasting human energy and financial capital. Think of it this way! The more ideal the work conditions the less drag on performance. The less ideal the work conditions the greater the need to provide workers with opportunities to mitigate work-related stress during the workday.

Work Overload
As a CEO, President, or Executive Director you’re probably thinking, what else can I do? This has to get done! From neighborhood to international organizations the world of globalization is generating production pressures and levels of competition so dynamic that many simply cannot keep up. The effects of work overload cascade downward and outward like a waterfall narrow and powerful at the top and broadening itself like a pyramid as it wears away the surface of everything below. The increase in work tasks associated with the accomplishment of an organizational goal can be geometric as a project moves from the administrative to the production level of the organization. When the administrative team of an organization fails to take the task-pyramid effect into account in setting goals for their production teams they increase the amount of stress in the organization and assure decreased performance. Unless they are wise enough to provide their workers with training in effective on-the-job stress management techniques.

Time Pressure
Work overload and time pressure go hand-n-hand. Each level of your organization needs to understand and take into consideration the relationship between the task-pyramid effect and the project time-line. In other words, it is easier for a manager to commit to giving a 3:00PM briefing than it is for his secretarial staff to put together the 23-page slide presentation that they are assigned at 2:13PM. The secretarial staff is put under increased stress because of that management decision. Maybe 3:30PM would have worked! Or at least, there should be an opportunity for the staff to manage that work-related stress once the project is complete. The body-mind cycles up and down naturally throughout the day and work-related schedules and demands can interrupt these innate rhythms with negative consequences to your health. Creating opportunities and taking advantage of opportunities to manage work-related stress on-the-job is essential to maintaining personal and corporate health.

Next month we will comment on Role Conflict, Role Strain, Thwarted Ambitions, and Social Change of the Fourth Kind as sources of work-related stress.

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