Workplace Stress and Burnout - Essay Example

Question 3 Critically analyse the different sources of stress in the workplace and the ‘wellness strategies’ that have been developed to combat these. In what ways might employers and employees benefit from such strategies? How might a good work-life balance contribute to this? In these latter days stress in the workplace has become usual feature of our everyday life. There is no doubt that all of us to some extend are affected by job-related stress. Although occupational stress is by no means a new phenomenon, it is becoming increasingly globalized and affects all countries, all professions and all the categories of worker, including both blue and white-collar workers, as well as families and society in general (What is workplace stress? Website at http: //www.ilo.org/public/english/ protection/safework/stress/whatis.htm). It should be mentioned that though stress has already become a well-studied phenomenon, it is quite complicated to define both the notion of stress in general and in particular the notion of job stress. “Job stress can be defined as a harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirement of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker. Job stress can lead to poor health and even injury.” (Stress at work, Website at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/stresswk.html). Though this definition is quite correct, the statement that stress is harmful can be argued. Every day people face new and inexperienced situations and normally they should be able to get new responses in their reaction to such situations. It would therefore be a mistake to claim that stress is for sure a negative phenomenon, because a person cannot exist in this world without any interaction with the constantly changeable environment and the other people. That is why only excesses of stress situations are harmful and leads to pathological effects. Recent researches approved that job-related stress leads to coronary deficiency, and a variety of mental and physical abnormalities (Bosma, 1997, pp. 558—565; Gushue, 1996, pp. 1310—1313). In consequence of long standing study of the impact that stress in the workplace has on civil servants in Great Britain, researchers have discovered that there is a relation between a servant’s feeling of impossibility to have control over the process and chance of getting cardiovascular diseases. On studying of 7000 civil servants, both women and men, the scholars have come to the conclusion, that the feeling of self-helplessness often combined with heart diseases is more inherent to workers of lower and middle hierarchic level. They have deduced that giving more attention to working environment may become one of the most important means of health derangements reduce. The other scholars have discovered the relation between the stress in the workplace and immune system weakening, high blood pressure, hormone balance abnormality, fluctuation of the mood, being depressed, insomnia, dyspepsia, anxiety, frustration, anger, as well as violence and accidents in the working place, alcohol and drugs abuse (Anderson, 1999; Cryer, 1996; Greiger, 2000, pp. 183—184; Gushue, 1996, pp. 1310—1313; Probst & Brubaker, 2001). It is clear that any of these abnormalities or their combination may lead to low quality of working, and as a result to productivity reduction. On studying the phenomena of stress in the workplace let us define the causes and affects of stress. Stress in the workplace has different sources. Researchers assort the following job-related stress factors: 1. Elimination out of decision-making process, and hence the feeling of lack of working process control. 2. Poor communications together with insufficient feedback, or entire feedback absence with regard to work results. 3. General obscurity regarding roles distribution. 4. Sense of reward system injustice. 5. Lack of work position preservation guarantee. 6. Complicacy of new technologies adaptation. 7. Constant working less or working much more than needful. 8. Work by relays. 9. Unpleasant and antagonistic working environment. 10. Negative social sphere. 11. Responsibility of making decisions of vital importance. All these factors have some definite features. It is very important to realize that as all people are unique, various individuals have different reactions on the same stress factors. That is why it is a responsibility of management to be familiar with theses factors, to know if there are such factors existing within they organization they operate in, and which is the influence they have on employees. Now let us consider the effects of stress on our health. At the very begging of human’s existence the stress was a kind of genetically determined reaction of human beings to threats or pressure. It has the primary objective to prepare them for hard physical activity of the fight type. Such situations demand a quickening of the heartbeat and breathing rhythm and the diversion of more blood to the muscles than to other organs (What is workplace stress? Website at http: //www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/safework/ stress/whatis.htm). The release of adrenaline and nor adrenalin raises levels of glucose and free fatty acids in the blood stream to provide a higher-level energy. Such kind of in-built reactions are no more accepted to the types of pressure faced by most people in their working and family lives. As a consequence, unhealthy levels of stress lead to a variety of disorders and illness. These include a broad band of pathological consequences, ranging from chronic fatigue to depression, and including insomnia, anxiety, migraine, emotional upsets, allergies and abuse of tobacco and alcohol (What is workplace stress? Website at http: //www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/safework/ stress/whatis.htm). Stress at work that lasts for a long period of time can take the form of burnout. Youth who lack a sense of being connected to others at home and school are at higher risk for emotional distress, violent behaviour, suicidal thoughts and actions and substance abuse. In all of these situations, the positive support of friends, family members and others help us to feel cared for and valued, which aids us in mobilizing our own resources to cope well with stress. The effect is to decrease the risk of long-term negative consequences from the stressful events or chronic stress situations in our lives (Banman, 2005). Burnout is a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest (“depersonalisation” or “cynicism”), usually in the work context (Burnout, website at . It often takes place as a result of combining too much effort at work and at the same time having too little recovery. It should be said mentioned that the nature of this phenomenon is a matter of disagree for the researchers. Some of them argue that burnout is referred just to work-related syndrome of exhaustion while the others define burnout as a specific case of more general clinical depression or just a form of extreme fatigue/exhaustion. “Burnout isn’t a neat diagnostic category that you can fin in the psychiatry books,” said Michael H. Gendel, M.D., associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado Health Science Centre, Denver, Colorado, and a psychiatrist in a private practice. ”At the time, there’s a lack of hard data and diagnostic research behind the burnout idea. The right studies and prospective studies haven’t yet been done”. Nevertheless, Dr. Gendel defines three main symptoms for the diagnosis of professional burnout: • Physical and especially emotional exhaustion; • Detachment from staff and the clients; • Loss of satisfaction or sense of accomplishment. The onset of burnout is usually quite slow. The first symptoms of burnout as a rule include a sense of total physical and especially emotional exhaustion, which followed by senses of alienation, cynicism, impatience, or negativism. Later on this grows into profound a felling of detachment, with a growing resentment of work and the people in your environment. At final stage people suffering from professional burnout insulate themselves to the point they no more care about much at all. The specific feature of burnout is that it often happens to the very employees who were most enthusiastic and full of energy and new ideas at the very beginning of the career. The reason is that such people often work harder and harder in order to reach unrealistic aims. It would be a mistake to think that burnout is only an individual problem. Though the variety of burnout causes such as greed bosses expecting too much from their employees, extremely demanding schedules and the other we shouldn’t forget about the organizations which very often cause endemic burnout by imposing impossible targets, faulty structures and poorly defined roles. Burnout starts when people lose their belief objectives are attainable, regardless of how hard they work; when effort and outcome aren’t linked in any rational and understandable way; or when they feel their work is misjudged and they no longer understand clearly what is expected of them (Burnout, website at http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/burnout.html#more-984). In order to cope with job-related stress it is necessary to take some actions to prevention and abatement of real and potential stressful factor, which may influence the quality and productivity of work. Therefore in order to disclosure of such factors and their impact on employees it is necessary to conduct organizational stress diagnostics. It must be a height participation process, supported by professionals having appropriate knowledge and experience. According to the last researches, organizations may to a large degree prevent or abate stress in the working place by means of: 1. Working out a scale of stresses. 2. Elaboration of forms for disorders symptoms determination. 3. Inventory of burnout effect. 4. Audit of organizational stress. 5. Strategies of equilibration or abatement of stress for different positions or departments. 6. Other means with respect to particular characteristics of every particular organization (Covey, 1999; Cryer, 1996). In the context of audit of organizational stress Occupational Stress Indicator, OSI is widely used. In order to calculate OSI they use six different questionnaires, centered on: 1. Determination of pressure sources. 2. General models of employees’ behavior. 3. Perception of work control measure. 4. Existent strategies of stress negotiation. 5. Well-being of employees. 6. Employees’ self-satisfaction. After all necessary conditions are created and organizational diagnostics of stress is conducted, there is a possibility to take actions to reduce stress level and ply employees with knowledge and skills how to get the best of stress situations. The concrete actions that should be taken depend on the results of stress audit conducted in a given organization. Nevertheless on the basis of resent research there have been pointed out several strategies and techniques of stress prevention and decrease. These are the most efficient: Organization of special trainings concentrated on stress in the workplace prevention, distinction, and negotiation. Possibly usage of team participation in decision-making process aiming to create feeling of control under the work within the majority of employees. Working out an Employee Assistance Program, including advices with respect to prevention and treatment of stress-related diseases. More flexible working schedule. Organization of conflict management and employee communication seminars. Promotion of open communication between leadership and other employees in order to reduce such factors as the lack of position preservation guarantee, roles confusion, the fear of changes, and other work-related matters. In conclusion to general stress-related researches, there are many specific stress-related works examining stress for such specific professions as policemen (Anderson, 1995), disaster workers (Greiger, 2000), urban transit operators (Ragland, 2000), firefighters (Salazar and Beaton, 2000), teachers (Anderson, 1999), public defenders (Lynch, 1998), and others. There is no doubt that workplace stress and burnout are widespread and have a very high cost for individual, companies and the society in general. In recent time there are many researches that are held in this sphere. The main aim of such researches is to find out what can be done to combat or manage workplace stress or at least to limit the amount of stress. The other goal is to give some practical advises to employers in order to deal with stress related jobs. As for the corporations it is important to remember that all the executives are just a real people not the machines and they suffer from stress and burnout like everybody else. All of us have to learn to be more attentive to each other and to care about his/her families and co-workers. Bibliography 1. Adrian Savage 2006, Burnout, Lifehack.org, viewed 13 January, < http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/burnout.html#more-984> 2. Anderson, W 1995, Stress management for law enforcement officers, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall. 3. Anderson, V 1999, ‘The effects of mediation on teacher perceived occupational stress, state, and trait anxiety, and burnout’, School Psychology Quarterly, 14(1). 4. Banman N 2005, ‘Buffering stress through staying connected’, Colorado State University Cooperative Extension, Larimer County, presented January 18. 5. Bosma, H 1997, ‘Low job control and risk of coronary heart disease in Whitehall II Study’, British Medical Journal, 314: pp. 558—565. 6. 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Probst, T and Brubaker, T 2001, ‘The effects of job insecurity or employee safety outcomes: cross-sectional and longitudinal explorations’, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 6 (2). 12. Programme on Safety and Health at Work and the Environment (SafeWork) 2001, What is workplace stress?, International Labour Organisation, viewed 10 January, 2007, . 13. Ragland, D 2000, Neurobiological, psychosocial and developmental correlates of drinking — occupational stress factors and alcohol-related behaviour in urban transit operators. Alcoholism: Clinical Experimental Research, 21 (7), pp. 1011—1020. 14. Salazar, M and Beaton, R 2000, ‘Ecological model of occupational stress: application to urban fire-fighters’, Journal of the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, 48 (10). 15. Wikipedia 2006, Burnout (psychology), The Free Encyclopedia, viewed 12 January, 2007, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnout_%28psychology%29> Read More