Workplace stress: The Causes and Consquences - Dissertation Example

A further four are related to the content of work: work environment and equipment, task design, work load or pace of work, and the work schedule. An imbalance in these elements may produce a load on the human response mechanisms that evokes adverse psychological and physiological reactions. The human response mechanism – which includes behavior, physiological reactions and cognition – act to bring the environmental factors that are creating the imbalance under control. These efforts, coupled with an inability to achieve balance, produce an overload on the response mechanisms that leads to mental and physical fatigue.

Prolonged exposure and fatigue leads to strain and disease. A large number of research studies suggest that unhealthy levels of stress causes a variety of disorders and illness. These include a wide spectrum of pathological consequences, ranging from chronic fatigue to depression, and including insomnia, anxiety, migraines, emotional upsets, allergies and the abuse of tobacco and alcohol. The cost of stress is very high for individuals (poor health, accidents, low job satisfaction, health care expenditures), for companies and organizations (poor performance, lack of productivity, absenteeism, medical costs, turnover, even labor conflicts and strikes), and for society (health care costs, loss of intellectual capital, low- level performance and economic competitiveness).