STRESS IN THE WORKPLACE

Stress in the workplace

Stress in the workplace

Introduction

Strictly speaking, stress is any kind of force or pressure. This pressure can be physical, such as the stress of exercise or the stress of a debilitating disease, as well as emotional or situational, such as the stress of a high-pressure, low-freedom job. Today the term stress is loosely applied to virtually any event or situation that can evoke frustration, anger, or anxiety. In the workplace, stress arises where roles and expectations are unclear, when changes are being introduced, where people have to work on the boundaries of one function and another, where responsibility has to be taken for other people's work, where there is responsibility for decisions but little discretion, and where there are relationship problems. Some people are better at tolerating these stresses than others. In particular, investigations of employee personality traits show that Type A personalities are more prone to stress than those categorized as Type B. In a managerial position, those who are more sociable, more strong-minded and reasonably sensitive (they cannot be insensitive, but nor can they be highly emotional) are less likely to be stressed or create stress for others. This paper discusses work place stress in a holistic context.

Thesis Statement:

Occupational stress arises from an interaction between people and their jobs and is characterized by changes within people that force them to deviate from their normal functioning.

Discussion and Analysis

Stress and burnout are inevitable problems for the highly committed, highly involved individuals who work in today's competing organizations. The concept of 'burnout' is less conceptually confused than that of stress, not least because of a clear articulation of the different components, and their ready measurement in a single, well-accepted measuring instrument, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) (Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Maslach has defined burnout as, “a psychological ...