The Problem of Stress at Work

THE PROBLEM OF STRESS AT WORK

BY: FONGE JOHN ECHIA

Dealing with stress in a working environment remains a major challenge in the life of a worker and the organization. Stress easily affects performance and could lead to employee dissatisfaction, poor performance, low production, absenteeism, employee turn over and so on. Stress is a situation that could be seen as burdensome, threatening, ambiguous, or boring to the extent that it may lead to depression, anger, hostility, frustration and so on. Stress could be defined as continues negative respond arising from extreme pressure or other demands and the individual’s inability to cope. Stress is anything that places on an individual a psychological or physical factor, beyond the individual’s stability, producing a strain within him or putting his health and safety in danger.

At the workplace a measure of stress in natural and it is not an unhealthy thing and without it nothing will ever get done properly and in time. A certain amount of stress is beneficial to the organization and the employee because it helps to create a sense of commitment and promote performance. An employee’s performance may improve with pressure to a certain point. Beyond this point continues pressure with lead to a fall in performance as the employee is no longer able to cope with the pressure. The result will be seen as fatigue, poor judgment and bad decision making.

At the root of workplace stress we could have the following:

1) Organization culture and Organizational changes

- The lack of communication and consultation between employees and hierarchy could lead to stress. Imagine that the boss expects only results but does not take time to explain things to employees or give an orientation on how things should be done or what should be done. If the boss makes himself unreachable by his staff proper communication will not be there and the workers will be forced to operate on their own. This situation will lead to errors,...