INTRODUCTION

Topic: Stress in the Workplace

Richard Lazarus defined stress as the perceived feelings a person has that the demands exceed
the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilise (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).
Another word for stress is tension or anxiety. Stress is usually viewed as a negative experience,
but from a biological point of view, stress can be a neutral, negative, or positive experience.
Neutral stress or Eustress- positive stress brought about easily traversed challenges turn into
negative stress-distress.
Stress has both external and internal factors these are usually referred to as stressors- anything
that causes stress. External stressors include the physical environment, including your job, your
relationships with others, your home, and all the situations, challenges, difficulties, and
expectations within these settings. Internal stressors relate to your body's aptitude to deal to
external stress factors. Internal factors which influence your ability to handle stress include your
health and fitness levels, mental state, nutritional state, and the amount of sleep and rest you get.
Stress cannot be truly avoided in todays workplace. Workplace stress has been characterized in
particular as employee response to a perceived challenge or threat to their physical or mental
state. Murphy (1995) identified five categories of workplace stress: (1) Factors unique to the job,
(2) role in the organization, (3) career development, (4) interpersonal work relationships, and (5)
organizational structure/climate. In organizational settings it is apparent that stress can occur
specifically when there is a conflict between the employee and the job demands placed on that
employee. Stressors in the work environment are usually caused by too much responsibility and
too little authority, unfair labour practices, work setting, harassment, discrimination and
inadequate job descriptions.
When someone experiences stress, there are many different symptoms and repercussions.
Depending on the level and frequency of stress, some of these symptoms can become serious and
cause a myriad of problems. Stress affects people both mentally and physically. The heart rate
increases, headaches can develop, and often people become irritated much more easily.
Individuals who work in high stress or dangerous jobs as well as those who are employed at a
place where there is a high pressure environment are often prone to experiencing stress.
Understanding how to manage, minimize, and deal with stress can help people feel more relaxed

and react effectively when stressful situations arise. Three of the most common forms of
workplace stressors that will be dealt with in this essay are those that relate to management style,
working settings and interpersonal relationships.

Workplace Stressor: Interpersonal Relationships

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Relationships can be one of the biggest sources of stress, especially where there are problems
like bullying, discrimination, threats of violence and harassment. French and Caplan (1972)
defined environments with poor working relationships as those which include, low trust, low
supportiveness, and low interest in listening and trying to deal with problems that confront the
organizational member .Workplace stress usually stems from toxic relationships between
managers, co-workers, and/or subordinates. Interpersonal conflict in the workplace may range
from minor disagreements between co-workers to physical assaults on others. Conflict can be
triggered by unclear job boundaries; competition for scarce resources; gender wage gap; time
pressures; personality clashes; unreasonable standards or rules; communication breakdowns; and
unrealized expectations.
Toxic behaviour can manifest itself in a number of ways, for example; via threats to professional
status through the belittling opinions, public humiliation, and accusations of lack of effort;
personally directed negative commentary such as insults, name calling and teasing; isolating
one from peers through the spreading of rumours; preventing access to opportunities such as
training and withholding information; overwork such as undue pressure to produce work,
impossible deadlines, and unnecessary disruptions; and destabilization such as failure to give
credit when due, meaningless tasks, removal of responsibility, and shifting of goalposts (Raynor
and Hoel 1997). Work colleagues also can withdraw their support from an individual being
harassed, most times in an effort to protect themselves from meeting the same fate but they can
also sometimes join in with the bullying. This removes the social support that is crucial to
counteracting the stress and consequent psychiatric harm.
This first indication of workplace interpersonal conflict exhibits itself in the performance of
individuals, teams and in the organization as a whole. Employees that are faced with conflict find
it hard to go to work and are more like to be absent. They may reduce their job performance or
even quit. Such a toxic working environment can also lead to significant health issues. It
increases your risk for coronary heart disease (CHD), a leading cause of death in Trinidad and
Tobago. When your brain perceives stress, you get reactions from the specific areas in the body,
and an elevation of stress hormones- cortisol and nor epinephrine- increase in concentration in
the blood. This is then exhibited with panic attacks, or even headaches. This stress can cause
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specific adverse health effects for instance making it harder to control diabetes by raising blood
glucose levels. This is related to the "fight or flight" response when confronted by conflict, which
prompts your body to raise blood sugar levels to help boost energy in response to the stress.
Emotionally charged situations have been also demonstrated to have immediate and escalating
effects on cholesterol levels. While illness is a severe reaction from work-related stress, it can
still prompt feelings of fatigue or anxiety (Rabin and Garrison, 2005).
Inappropriate behaviour; whether it involves bullying, sexual harassment or workplace violence,
must be investigated and those violating policy must face disciplinary action. Depending on the
nature of the behaviour and/or impact on the target, employers must take swift action
and discipline the offending party with termination being the final step. The first step involves
confronting with the perpetrator with the possibility of disciplinary action, informing them that
their behaviour has negatively impacted another employee; sometimes the offender will take
steps to alter his or her behaviour. Progressive disciplinary action can be combined with remedial
training in some cases. Mediation is usually discouraged in these cases. Exercise is very
important for emotional balance. Scheduling exercise ensures that even with a busy schedule it
gets done (Meit, 2015). Relaxation techniques like yoga and meditation are also likely to produce
the most positive results.
.

Workplace Stressor: Management Style

Managers have the power to provide, withhold resources or to oversee punishment and how they
wield that power can affect workplace stress. As Graham (1998) noted poor management is a
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major cause of stress. Management style involves the communication/interaction between the
manager and subordinate. How the interaction process is handled can provoke unnecessary
conflict. The main discernible problem is that negative feedback is seen as a effective way to
control employees when in reality the most effective managers use constructive criticism insteadthat is, criticism that can be used effectively by the recipient to improve his or her performance.
This poor management approach involves an aggressive leadership style. This manager is often
bullying, autocratic and generally insensitive to the needs and feelings of others. Managers like
this are recognized by their tendency to be excessively demanding and primarily focused on
tasks and results with little or no regard for the people around them. The current workplace
climate sees workers who commonly know more about their jobs than their supervisors and
where individual responsibility and assertiveness are expected. Aggressive managerial styles
which promote tight control and command have been deemed inappropriate and ineffective
(Turknett and Anderson, 2013, p.1).
Bad Management practices can have negative effects on employee job performance. Employees
who feel abused by their supervisors/ managers have more feelings of job and life dissatisfaction.
This in turn drives the employee's decision to come to work each day. An employee who feels
victimized shows high absence rates. They also indicate more intentions to quit their jobs as they
can no longer stand the psychological distress they face. In these environments while there may
be reluctant conformity there is also retaliation. A mangers uncivil behaviour prompts the same
from his/her subordinates. This pattern of incivility becomes part of company culture. The
response from employees towards a bad manager is often showed by ignoring directives, making
the achieving of organizational goals near impossible. This behaviour can also be directed at
clientele. This prompts complaints from customers and drives them to take their business
elsewhere. Within the public sector where there is little recourse situations can turn abusive and
even violent as clients understanding that they have nowhere else to go vent their frustrations at
uncivil service.
A good manager is one who can stimulate productivity and creativity and decrease turnover and
who excel at building teams and motivating others, not those who rely on a bad-tempered and
insensitive interpersonal style (Turknett and Anderson, 2013, p. 1). Managers must possess
emotional intelligence and engage in solution oriented leadership. This utilizes the information
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gleaned from interactions in a way that engages persons and substantially improves performance.
Deakin University (2016) has established a five point guide for managers to help employees cope
with negative stress using a knowledge base collected from interaction.

OHS RISK MANAGEMENT FIVE STEP METHODOLOGY

of
"FIND, ASSESS AND FIX"
Look
The first step is about paying attention to your staff, noticing any changes in their usual
behaviour or relationships.
It may be also worthwhile reviewing leave use, both recreation and sick leave as well as overtime or time in lieu.
Listen
Listen to what staff are saying: are there more complaints or excuses than unusual?
Has the level of conflict or sensitivity increased? How much impact is the stress having?
Think
Think about what you have observed and how that relates to the factors that typically lead to
workplace stress. Focus on the obvious causes but do not ignore the full range of possibilities.
Be honest with yourself: what is my contribution? Managers must understand their own
behaviours and feelings.

If you believe the stress is not work related, how is work aggravating the situation?
Discuss
If appropriate, discuss the issues with your staff individually and/or as a group.
If you need assistance, talk to your Human Resources Officer first
Act
Put into place a plan to reduce, offset, rebalance, or better manage the stress.
This is preferably done in consultation with staff.
Source: Deakin University 2016

Workplace Stressor: Work Roles

Work roles are both the positions and responsibilities associated with a job. Roles can be defined
as the parts employees are assigned in the organization while responsibilities are the specific
tasks or duties that workers are expected to complete as a function of their roles. They are the
specific activities or obligations for which they are held accountable when they assume-or are
assigned to-a role on a project or team. Role can also be used to describe how people behave,
contribute and relate with others. A critical issue that can negatively affect the success of
organizational goals is a lack of clarity regarding the roles, responsibilities, and expectations of
the various units and/or individuals who form its membership.
Some of the stressors apparent in work roles are ambiguity, work overload and work under load.
Role ambiguity, according to Rizzo, House, and Lirtzman (1970), occurs when it is unclear what
actions should be taken to meet the expectations of the role. French and Caplan (1972) viewed
overload as either having too much to do or having too many difficult tasks to complete. When
you have too much to do along with time pressure, long hours, unrealistic deadlines, frequent
interruptions, and lack of appropriate rest intervals a negative stress reaction can occur. When
the work is too difficult and the job exceeds the technical and intellectual competence of the
individual it can exceed the ability of the individual to cope with it. The kind of job may involve
continuous concentration; high level decision-making and dealing with sophisticated
information. Work Under load on the other hand usually involves boring, routine, repetitive and
under stimulating work environments (Cox, 1980). The individual may feel bored because of the
jobs repetitive nature or frustrated because there is no opportunity for self-expression. These
kinds of jobs fail to provide meaningful intellectual stimulation.
Latack (1981, p.89) has linked role stress with a variety of dysfunctional outcomes for the
individual and the organization. Ortqvist and Wincent (2006) in their review of the consequences
of role stress point to the lack of organizational commitment, poor job satisfaction, the
propensity to quit, and tension as side effects of work role stressors. Work overload can over
time, wear down the individual-burnout-a condition in which individuals show signs of
emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion coupled with feelings of low self-esteem or low selfefficacy. In certain professions such as nursing it has been linked to higher rates of mortality,
high rates of general illness, stress-related disease, psychiatric outpatient consultation, and
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psychiatric admissions(Metules and Bolange, 2000, p.p.61-64). Kemery et al. (1987)

summarized that role ambiguity directly influences job satisfaction and physical health and can
make itself evident in undesirable physiological symptoms such as high blood pressure. If roles
are not clearly defined they can promote a lack of engagement as employees become
disinterested in performing a job that they are unclear about. This ambiguity also promotes team/
group discord as members may end up butting heads as they attempt to complete the same tasks.
Cissy Pau (2016) suggests that in other to clarify work roles employers should create clear job
descriptions for each position these will identify the main duties, responsibilities and
performance expectations of the position. Another way to reduce the stress of role ambiguity is
the effectively communicate expectations. Employees should have at the end a clear idea of the
goals for their position and how these goals tie to overall company goals and objectives, and the
standards to which they are expected to perform. A third means of reducing the stress apparent in
work roles is through empowerment; this is also referred to as employee engagement and can be
facilitated through participative management. Heathfield (2016) defines this as the process of
enabling or authorizing an individual to think, behave, take action, and control work and decision
making about the job in autonomous, independent, self-directed ways. An empowered employee
is an informed one who manages their jobs according to their skills and abilities. The stress is
relieved producing a feeling of self-empowered and the ability take control of ones own destiny.

CONCLUSION
Stress in the workplace is a foregone conclusion. Whether this stress is positive, neutral or
negative depends on the individuals coping ability- their resilience to pressure, the organizational
commitment to employees health and wellness and the social support network that is available
to the worker. In order to combat stress individuals can eat a healthier diet, exercise, engage in
more positive self talk and take up meditation. Management of negative stress may involve
nothing more than additional training and increased communication. Sometimes talk therapy is
effective- the ability to talk to someone who is neutral to a given situation or problem allows the
troubled person a release. Whatever the means used to combat stress it should be made a priority
or both the worker and the organization will be faced with high costs.

References
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Jones, M. (2016). Learning How to Manage Stress in the Workplace.

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Pau, C. (2008). Clear Goals Need Clear Roles. Team Building Tips. Retrieved from
http://www.teambuildingtips.com/clear-goals-need-clear-roles/

Reducing Stress in the Workplace. (2002). Itstime.com. Retrieved 1 April 2016, from
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Work related stress Causes of stress. (2016). Hse.gov.uk. Retrieved 1 April 2016, from
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