M3.15 Managing Stress in the Workplace

M3.15 Managing Stress in the Workplace

Reflective Review

Stress is the inability or feeling of inability to cope with what is happening around you. You can feel stress due to be being busy at work, working to tight deadlines, conflict, personal reasons or a combination of them all. Different people will also feel stress at different levels so it is not easy to predict, you can however look out for signs of stress both in yourself and others.

Some psychological and behavioral signs of stress which may be easy to recognise in others are:

Anger, depression, mood swings, low self esteem, paranoia, inability to concentrate, procrastination, reduced work performance, nervous ticks.

Seeing the above develop in others may indicate that they are suffering from stress. Some more physiological symptoms that you may see in yourself when stressed are:

Dry mouth, clammy hands, palpitations, migraines, backache, indigestion, skin complaints, sleeplessness

If you do find yourself, or recognise that a colleague is suffering from stress a good technique is to remove yourself from the situation, have a break & take some deep breaths. You should find that when you return to the situation you wont be quite so clouded and involved in the heat of the moment.

Stress within organisations can severely affect productivity, if you consider the symptoms outlined above and think of a workplace with a high percentage of workers who could be depressed, procrastinating or aggressive it would not be a very healthy or efficient working environment. Staff sickness would also be high although if not recognised as stress then you would expect to see the sickness to be quite regular as it they are having time off for the symptom and not addressing the cause. I would also expect a high staff turnover due to what would undoubtedly be socially uncomfortable working conditions.