Statement of Problem
The psychological well-being of employees is in the workplace is crucial if stress is to be avoided and performance improved (Vainio, 2015). According to Hiriyappa (2013), stress is inevitable in the workplace, and the effects of stress are mostly negative. Mild stress can have a positive outcome of enhancing the performance of employees in the workplace (Britt & Jex, 2015). However, significant stress has deleterious effects and 75% of workers in the US report experiencing significant stress every month, a situation that results in health damages (American Psychological Association, 2015). Such developments make this topic an important area of study.
The general problem is that work-related stress affects people emotionally, mentally, and physiologically resulting in aggravated job performance (O’Keefe, Brown, & Becky, 2014; Patel, 2013). Mental symptoms of work-related stress include difficulties in decision-making and a lack of concentration at work. Emotional indications might include heightened levels of anxiety, feelings of hostility, guilt, cynicism, depression, and fear (Patel, 2013). Employees experiencing such symptoms will often have problems cooperating with their colleagues and the management and as a result, they will contribute less to the attainment of the set organizational goals. The decreased productivity by employees might necessitate their replacement and this will cause the organization to incur greater expenses as it recruits and prepares new workers to fill in the vacated position (O’Keefe, Brown, & Becky, 2014). The specific problem is that employers have trouble recognizing stress in their employees because most workers never state they are having mental or emotional problems, which in most cases leads to low productivity (Horner, 2014). Preventing work-related stress is crucial to achieving high-performance outcomes and it should incorporate interventions that are meant to neutralize the stressful environment (Sherridan & Ashcroft, 2015). Employers could use the information gained from this phenomenon to enhance the employees’ resilience resulting in better job performance and improved well-being of all personnel, which would result in improved productivity (Leon & Halbesleben, 2013).
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this qualitative study is to identify the key driving factors of workplace stress, the harm caused by workplace stress and the mechanisms employees and employers can use to reduce stress. To achieve this goal, recent academic developments in the fields of psychology, social and behavioral studies as well as in organizational and personal management will be analyzed. To find practical solutions for reducing workplace stress, this study will evaluate the human resource management and stress management policies of five American companies. By applying the comparative and systematic methods, the recommendations for the organizations will be developed.
Research Questions
The following research questions elaborate on how the research purpose will be fulfilled. These questions ensure that the process of defining key factors of workplace stress and ways to reduce it is accomplished by viewing the phenomenon from several critical perspectives. Moreover, these questions will help to work out the recommendations for work-related stress reduction.
Q1. What is the mechanism of workplace stress emergence?
To understand the concept of workplace stress, one needs first to identify the stress and psychological mechanisms involved when it occurs. Stress is seen as the combination of physical and psychological reactions by the human organism to the impact of various challenges or threats that violate the organism’s stability and lead to dysfunctions of the nervous system (Sohail & Chaudhary, 2015). It is assumed that some limited exposure to such threats and challenges increases brain productivity and motivates a person to search for new solutions to the problem. However, continuous exposure leads to exhaustion and disruption of neural connections (Bono, Glomb & Koch, 2013). It is therefore important to know the limit to which one can be exposed to stressors as stimuli of rapid and decisive actions before their impact becomes deleterious.
Q2. What are the key personal and external preconditions that may lead to work-related stress?
Looking at the employee as a complex system, one might suggest that workplace stress is caused by internal and external factors that influence the stability of the system. Stress can be triggered by the person’s inadequate subjective perception of the situation, unreasonable expectations and individual peculiarities of the psyche. However, most of the workplace stress comes from the working environment including the pressure of the management and colleagues, strict deadlines, changes in the work routine, financial issues of the company and high professional requirements by management (Panzaru & Dragomir, 2012). For the purposes of further research, it is useful to find out how the workplace stress factors vary for different professional, social and gender groups. It is also worthwhile to establish to what extent a person can withstand the adverse influence of external factors by applying the techniques of personal management.
Q3. What are the social and economic consequences of workplace stress?
Both employees and employers should clearly understand that work-related stress is harmful not only to the individual’s physical and mental health, family, and social relations but also to the organization’s overall performance and success. There is no doubt that every business aims to increase its finances and reduce expenses. Refusing to pay attention to workers’ psychological health and treating them as an easily replaceable variable can lead to significant expenditure and financial loss (O’Keefe, Brown, & Becky, 2014). This research will review the recent statistical findings on the correlation between work-related stress and material and social losses to organizations.
Q4. How do the companies in the USA cope with the workplace stress of their employees?
In the present day, successful companies understand that people are their most valuable resources. They, therefore, endeavor to treat employees at all levels as equal members of the team that contributes to the noble goal of ensuring that the company achieves high performance (Hughes, 2014). Based on a recent survey report by O’Connor (2015) for Forbes on the top employers in the US, this research will examine the human resource policies of the top five best companies with Google, Costco Wholesale, Marathon Petroleum, The Container Store and LL Bean among them. The research will find out what makes those companies the best places to work and whether they have specific guidelines on how workplace stress should be reduced.
Q5. Why is it important to develop stress management policies within the organization?
Some may argue that coping with stress is strictly a personal problem that the employee should address. However, since it is part of the company’s obligations to provide a safe and healthy working environment for every employee and health is not only limited to the physical aspects, the implementation of stress reduction policies becomes necessary for any organization that sets high working standards and requires significant results from the employees (Rasmussen, Mylonas, & Beck, 2012). Taking into account the strong competition between companies for skilled and talented workers and the workers’ clear perception of their rights and readiness to defend those rights, one may suggest that efficient stress reduction policies can become the key competitive advantage of the organization. The research will define the main principles and steps of stress management policies and suggest the recommendations to be used while working out those policies.
References
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