Workplace Stress in Relation to Workplace Safety - Essay Example

Rationale of the Project: Awareness Raising Project Safety in the Workplace Safety in the workplace is one of the foremost concerns of both the workers and the business owners. Safety in the workplace may include both the source of stress and its relation to critical incidents that normally happens every day. Critical incidents in the workforce perspective refers to the “sudden, unexpected events that often are significant enough to overwhelm normal coping responses and they normally vary in type and severity and can affect employees as well as management” (Regehr and Hill, 2000). Because critical incidents normally happen unexpectedly, there are special prevention and/or restoration techniques that companies usually follow. Preventions techniques are focused on minimizing intense negative effects and making sure employees are safe from harm and trauma. In cases of accidents, natural or man-initiated disasters, there are safety gears and equipments available in the most accessible areas of the workplace building coupled with the safe exit points. Fire alarm systems and easy access with communication lines to contact the proper authorities (such as emergency hotlines, hospitals, ambulance, fire departments, etc) are also ensured. In cases wherein the unexpected incident has persisted, there are restoration strategies that management usually takes into consideration. This includes physical, psychological and/or emotional therapy for the workers who may have suffered from trauma and emotional imbalance. Treatment and care for those who suffered physical pains. Lastly, there are medical and/or financial assistance and even insurance coverage to those who are extremely affected. Needless to say, when critical incidents do happen, management of it must be based not only on what he company can do, but also on what the people need and what the situation calls. Workplace Stress in Relation to Workplace Safety In the minds of many business owners and managers, workplace stress is an everyday part of business. They think that stress does not become worrisome until it explodes into a screaming match or a violent act. However, by then, it may be too late to prevent an incident (Venkateshwara, 2006). By recognizing and dealing with early signs of stress, managers can help create a calmer, more productive atmosphere for all employees - and ward off potentially dangerous behavior. Humans exhibit a physical response to stress, characterized by heightened senses, increased heart rate, muscular tension, and increased blood pressure. This evolutionary throwback is designed to help humans flee wild animals or physically protect loved ones from danger. However, left untreated, this repeated physical response to an emotionally stressful stimulus can cause real health problems, and it can reduce a valued employee's productivity (Chiavenato, 2001). In dealing with stress, managers must understand that the physical response to a conversation or event is not always dictated by the reality of the situation; what matters is how the event is interpreted by those involved. Thus, the same event or comment may send one employee through the roof while another may barely react or may not notice it at all (Festing, 1997). To ease workplace stress, managers must be able to recognize the effects of stress on employees and to determine the cause. If the stress is related to work, managers can then take steps to try to reduce it. The signs of stress are varied and can be manifested in many types of extreme behavior. Managers should watch out for changes in emotional state. For example, an employee who is suddenly anxious, angry frustrated, moody, or irritable may be suffering from stress. Mental perception, concentration, memory judgment, decisiveness, accuracy, and motivation may also be altered due to stress (Chiavenato , 2001). Employees under too much stress may have trouble with relationships at work. They may alter their attendance - overworking, working odd hours, or becoming lax about work schedules. Recurring illnesses as well as poor performance and an increased number of accidents can also signal an overstressed employee (Venkateshwara, 2006). Once a manager has recognized these warning signs, he or she must determine the source of the stress. This is not always easy, especially for managers who do not feel comfortable talking to employees about personal matters. However, these discussions are critical, because the stress of one employee could affect the health or safety of others. In general, stress can be categorized as external - caused by issues and events that occur outside of the office and relating to the employee's personal life -or internal - caused by work and work-related issues (Venkateshwara, 2006). Examples of external problems include financial concerns, family difficulties, health issues, and even psychological disturbances such as personality disorders. A manager's obligation is not to solve these problems but to be aware of them and to see their potential effect on the workplace (Maharajj, 2000). When problems are detected, managers can make employees aware of company resources that may be able to help them deal with their personal stress. For example, the employee could be advised to look into the company's employee assistance program (Maharajj, 2000). By raising the issue, the manager is letting the employee know that the company will support his or her efforts to deal with a personal issue, which may be all that is needed to motivate the employee to seek assistance. While managers have little influence over the personal stress employees bring to work, they may be able to affect the stress level at work. But they must begin by identifying the causes, which requires talking with the employee about the issue. In initiating this communication, managers must be truly open to feedback and foster a genuine atmosphere of trust. If managers can facilitate such communication, employees are more likely to let them know what is causing the problem in the office. However, if managers are not open to. suggestions or to providing positive change, employees will not offer input (Festing, 1997). Management of Workplace Stress and/or Hazards In response to the many threats and seemingly increasing stressors and critical incidents happening in and out of the corporate world nowadays, a lot of organizations have proven the scenario-based strategic planning can play a detrimental role to keeping the smooth flow of the company’s day-to-day operation. It has become apparent to most company managers and/or owners that while the pace of change in business environments continuously accelerates, predicting the business’ future conditions is also becoming more and more difficult to do. This is exactly where scenario-based planning’ comes in very handy. Scenario-based planning allows organizations to explore multiple alternative future situations and reduces the need for accurate single forecasts (Shoemaker, 1995). Scenarios are developed by blending intuition and creativity with data and analysis into a description of possible future conditions. Strategies can then be tested against a range of these scenarios, and executives can analyze which strategies, among the widest number of scenarios, reduce risk or produce the greatest potential returns. The process can also be used to prepare the organization for possible changes in its industry and to develop contingency responses should these changes occur (Shoemaker, 1995). While scenario-based planning has some obvious advantages in the dynamic environments faced by most organizations, it is sometimes difficult to implement, but once implanted properly, the end result always turned out to benefit the people and the company itself. The process requires generating broad range of ideas and integrating creative inputs across multiple individuals. Both the idea generation and integration processes are crucial to successful scenario planning, although they are complex and troublesome to manage. Moreover, effective scenario generation is dependent upon quality information resources; with more and better quality information, planners can develop scenarios with substantially richer contexts. Planning support systems offer the potential for using technology to streamline the scenario planning process and, more important, to improve the quality of both the scenarios to be evaluated and the strategic responses developed (Shoemaker, 1995). Thus, using scenario-based planning, more comprehensive and creative plans can be solicited from the employees regarding stress and critical incidents. The employees are greatly involved in thinking about the possible ways on how they can help manage stress and critical incidents. Employees, themselves, can share various experiences, perceptions and knowledge about various stressors and critical incidents that they have faced in and out of the work areas. Their suggestions can play detrimental roles in planning and implementing strategies that will either prevent succession of anymore critical incidents or limit the negative aftermaths when critical incidents take place. More so, employees can also analyze beforehand if a plan will workout. This can be done by testing and reenacting different instances and evaluating the best possible course of action for specific incident. Indeed, both the stress and critical incidents in the workplace can be managed properly if all the people concerned are involved even on the very planning stage and its execution. They will already know exactly what to do and they will not find it hard to adapt with any changes that will be applied with in the company because they are involved in conceptualizing such changes. All personnel will also easily adopt the new systems and approached when it comes to critical incident management because each idea and policy comes from the shared ideas of the employees themselves. Aims and Objectives of the Campaign Educating the workers about safety, health and sanitation and providing them better access to information services is the overall mission statement of the awareness raising project. The awareness raising project is committed to educating the workers through series of forums and information dissemination about the importance of safety, health and sanitation, having a definite plan of action when crisis occurs and its relation to maintaining a healthy and balance lifestyle. This mission statement is ethical in nature because it does not bypass any governing body. More so, it is very clear that the plans is coordinating with the organization and other offices and agencies so that more and wider audiences will be reached. With this simple yet direct mission statement any organization that will be targeted to be one of the recipients of the organization’s awareness raising project services will never be confused as to what the plan can do. Everything is laid down from the mission statement alone. Values Statement 1. The awareness raising project adheres to educating the concerned people in workplace areas about safety, health and sanitation 2. The organization maintains legal standards in terms of financial management and supply handling when coordinating with the supporting government and private agencies and/or individuals 3. The organization seeks to provide its target audience with the needed information about safety, health and sanitation correlating it with the need to be kept from diseases, emergencies and or accidents 4. The organization maintains high standards of information dissemination while seeing to it that the resources are balanced and well maintained 5. The organization aspires to target a wider scope and broader perspective by going into various areas or departments, doing more researches and interacting with varied groups of people 6. The organization welcomes more volunteers and support groups that will be willing to share their knowledge and expertise regarding safety, health and sanitation With the above quoted values statements, it can be perceived that the awareness raising project is a small yet action driven form of the organization. What it does is to simply educate and disseminate information to the people from within the organization. The topic is also simple as it is just about safety, health and sanitation. But the aftermath of such action is very profound and immeasurable. With safe, healthy and clean area comes lesser number of emergencies, accidents and or spread of diseases. With people who are kept informed about safety, health and sanitation enhances action thereby resulting to safe and protected organization. Thus, it can be inferred that the above values statement will trigger action from the members of the organization and the members of the support group. It will also activate action and positive response from the intended audience. The statement of values are directly related to the overall mission statement of the organization. The mission statement is actually the core basis why the values statements are established. More so, the values statement, if planned and done accordingly, will sum up to the attainment of the overall mission of the organization, thereby also maintaining the vision of the organization. Background Information of the Organization Fabulous Scandinavian Furniture (FSF) is already a recognized and very promising company. It has been supplying home wares, furniture and other related products to four major European countries (such as Norway, Finland, Sweden and Holland) and to customers in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. The plan is strategically titled as “ARP” or Awareness Raising Project. The name itself implies the commitment of the organization to raising awareness of the members of the organization to factors affecting safety and security in the workplace. This awareness raising project will be focused in educating the people or workers, particularly those that are directly connected to the organization. Description of the Target Audience Workers of Fabulous Scandinavian Furtnitures, especifically those working/assigned in the manufacturing department are the target audience of this Awareness Raising Project. They are the ones who are directly exposed or prone to accidents as they deal with creating and manufacturing many big furnitures. They handle materials that put them to risky situations. These workers in the manufacturing department of Fabulos Scandinavian Furnitures are males and females with ages ranging from 25- 50 years old. Most men are muscular in body built as they handle huge pieces of woods. Meanwhile, most women wear eyeglasses because they are critically assigned with colors and designs of the materials they are making. A critical discussion of the need to raise awareness in emergencies With globalization continuously rising, along with the fast-paced life that everybody in a workplace environment must be adapting with, it cannot be left unnoticed that there are some aspects of health, safety and security are being neglected. People, especially in workplace areas suffer from different kinds of diseases and/or accidents because of unmanaged health and improper crisis handling techniques. Needless to say, adults – men and women- suffer from varied medical related problems because of unsafe place they are working into. Because of this scenario, ‘”ARP” will play a very important role to which every member of the organization will find it necessary to increases their awareness about the risks they are facing when health and sanitation is not maintained and if there is no awareness raising project being imposed. A discussion of the elements of the campaign and why they have been chosen Establishing a plan is a very hard task, what more if it is about raising awareness to certain aspects of work scenario such as informing the public or members of the organization before, during and after a major emergency. It entails careful, selective and series of preparation, conceptualization and strategic execution. Achieving the plan is equally challenging. This will require continuous planning, sometimes reformatting, and of course exertion and implementation of the plans to live up with the vision and mission statement of the organization. This is the very reason why the organizational structure – in terms of vision, mission, code of conducts, form of leadership and the likes – should always be transparent with every member of the organization. These are the very backbone of the organization and without it, without out the people happily and faithfully following what is stated in this visions and missions statement, the organization will surely have a brighter future ahead. In lieu of this, detailed background information of the plan should b properly laid down so that every member of the organization can easily identify themselves with the plan. More so, having this information in ‘black and white’ will help in soliciting further assistance to and from the government and private sectors. An outline strategy for the delivery of the campaign Financing As for funding, this awareness raising project distributes solicitation letters from different government and private companies. The letter contains the mission and vision and values statement of the plan. It is highlighted in the letter that whoever will be contributing for the plan will be recognized thru the flyers and informational materials that will be distributed during the conduct of training to each and member of every department. The letter also includes details of where and how they can donate or provide assistance for the awareness raising project. A monthly or even quarterly contribution of specified amount will help greatly in running and maintaining of the plan. Training Requirements ARP will be the first line of response in accidents, emergencies and/or other life-threatening situations within the workplace. People involve in this plan will give the first medical attention even before the patients get to the hospital. This is the very reason why anybody who aspires to become a member that will initiate ARP needs to be advised and mentored effectively. The training of the awareness raising project facilitators will ideally take several weeks, which will compose of theoretical, practical and a combination of both types of training. Expected Outcome With careful and effective planning comes efficient and affective implementation. If everything is laid down, in ‘black and white’, from the very beginning, there will be no way that an organization’s endeavor, such as this ARP (awareness raising project) will start at the wrong end. Lastly, with committed leaders and equally committed members, the organization will surely run smoothly and aligned with the values, vision and missions that the organization wishes to uphold. References: Anthony, John H. 1989 "Therapeutic Leadership." Leadership Abstracts, Vol. 2, No. 13, August. Association Management. 2002. “Mastering Mission and Vision Statements”. American Society of Association Executives Chiavenato , I. (2001). Advances and Challenges in Human Resource Management in the New Millennium. 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