The Impact of Stress Working Environment at Nursing Home - Assignment Example

STUDENTS FULL NAME PROFESSOR’S NAME AFFILIATED INSTITUTION DUE DATE OF ASSIGNMENT LITERATURE REVIEW This is research on the impact of stress working environment at nursing home so that managers, supervisors would be able to manage it and enhance performance of individual workers. If stress it is left untreated could resulting into severe depression and anxiety, which could results in other related diseases that would kill an individual if not treated on time. Therefore, this research is based on the effects of stress on nursing home staff, as the title suggests, the literature cited here is directly related to the impact of stress at various work environments, which clearly states what the employees undergo while working. Individual is working at various occupations experiences several stressful situations, in order to deal with these stressful effects efficiently, employees and management should ensure there is a proper working environment for both employees and management try to minimize negative behavior at work and introduce mechanisms to deal with stress among employees. To put mechanisms in place to address issues of stress the management as to understand the psychological symptoms of stress such as anxiety, irritability, lack concentration, poor judgment, frustration, anger and physical symptoms such as headaches, low back pain, insomnia, and high blood pressure to effectively control and manage stress. Stress can impair people’s abilities to self-care and affect their ability to eat; drink, sleep, poor diet and irregular sleep patterns can magnify existing physical health symptoms. Stress can negatively affect memory, mood, thinking, and concentration because of this stress impairs the ability to think straight and may contribute to poor self-management. Exhaustion is an emotional, cognitive and physical experience of being over extended and overwhelmed and is the basic stress experience for most individuals. Following the experience of extreme exhaustion, individuals will be disengaged. Disengagement is a feeling of distancing from and devaluing of the work experience. Workers suffering from disengagement will become negative about their work and the people associated with it. (Timms et al 2007) The cognitive, emotional, behavioral and physiological response to the aggressive and harmful aspects of work, environment and organizational climate represents the organizational stress, which is characterized by feelings of helplessness in solving and responding to tasks. In addition, individual’s reaction when they experience huge demands or special tasks that are out of their abilities and capacity to handle them get stressed up. The so created stress could then impact on the organization performance, productivity and it negatively affects the behaviors of employees and management hence reducing their effectiveness of an organization in meeting its obligation that is why, there is an emphasis of prevention and managing before it gets out of hand in order to make a difference between organizational success and failure. The proper management of organizational stress requires that managers understand the types of stresses that would affect their employees to effectively prevent and manage it. Eustress represents a positive kind of stress that enables individuals to prepare themselves to perform better at the tasks before. Because eustress creates a positive energy that enhances creativity competitive spirit and offers the strength for performance better. The negative influence of stress happens when individuals are distracted from their work for a while. It has a negative because of the impact it has on individuals and is categorized as acute stress, which occurs when an individual is distracted and is unable to perform effectively is daily duties and is characterized by hypertensions, headaches, and stomach problems. While chronic stress occurs if the initial stress is not managed properly and the individual suffers for an extended period, which complicates is health further. (Bucurean Mirela and Mădălina-Adriana p. 333) As globalization takes shape, there is a cut throat competition between various nursing home to provide better services to there patient, these increase of demand of better services from patients and employers as lead to numerous changes, diversity in working environmental and adoption of multicultural diversity at organization has resulted into many cases of stress on the employees. The demand of work at nursing homes is so enormous especially among the less funded nursing homes, which have poor working environment, lack ways of motivating employees, work overload, understaffing lead to stress. Employees have to endure psychological effects of stress, depression, anxiety, sadness, fear and disappointment. The experience of positive or negative emotions is very much dependent on the way employees perceive their work and the way they respond to situations around the work places. Positive emotions such as hopeful, pleasant, and energetic feelings that promote mental health wellbeing of employees to develop and cultivate compassion and love, satisfaction, confidence, expectation for success, reasonableness, and tolerance among themselves and their management in order to succeed in delivering there services to the organization. The basic way to create a positive attitude to overcome stressful environment is to make the mind free from worry, anxiety, hatred, and anger so that there will be a space in the mind to generate positive and healthy energy that will encourage the recover from stress. (Channuwong 2010) By just focusing on positive thoughts and invoking the power of positive association, an individual could create mental well- being. Therefore, being a self-starter and completing a task in a positive manner can enhance personal performance. It does not matter what kind of organization you are associated with, this method can be of help especially to those who are prone to stress. Because of every working individual in one way or another s/he goes through some kind of strain that leads to stress during his or her work. This scenario makes stress universal consequent employees have to undergo around the world. But in developing countries employees face more stress episodes and employers do not realize the impact of job stress on employee’s involvement, commitment, job satisfaction and performance. (Coetzer and Rothmann 2007) This stress issue arises when employees are hired; they have a set of needs, expectations, wishes and previous experiences, which contributes to total job satisfaction. The organization’s management and responses to these needs would either produce negative or positive attitude among employees toward their job. Actually job satisfaction shows the relation between human expectations and advantages taken from job. (Willem 2007) According to Coetzee and De Villiers they suggested, that the job prescription, which did not meet employees expectations are indicated on the most reported cases of stress. The stress thereof, is assumed to be related to lack of proper job design such as work overload, role ambiguity and lack of job autonomy are rated negatively around the world concerning all work engagement, dedication and absorption, employee’s level of energy decreases and mental wellbeing. (Coetzee and De Villiers 2010) The employer’s expectation from their employees and job demand, stress is constant problem that is experienced by employees at all times. However, it can be minimized to a level that could be managed by improving quality of benefits in companies, providing employees with the best working environment plus the effort of the organization to satisfy employees and reward performance. (Seibt 2008) Stress is one of the leading causes for absenteeism from work and underperformance all over the world; in the workplace it has serious effects not only for the individual but also for the productivity and competitiveness of the organization. Employees who have mental health problems, exhibit reduced as concentration and underperformance at they work. Absenteeism due to sickness can lead to substantial productivity losses. Incapacitation and exclusion from the labor force due to work-related stress, anxiety and mental health problems account for an enormous share of long-term social welfare benefits. (Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health 2007) According to Nadeem he suggested that among different occupational stress ambiguity role, work overload, conflict and lack of senior level support do contribute more to stress. Employees who are prone to discrimination, favoritism, delegation and conflicting tasks experience stress more over than not. Therefore, the individuals working in stressful situations, like hospital emergency departments, need family, friends, and colleague to provide social support to minimize effects of stress. (Nadeem 2011) As Chang and Lu suggested, the organizational management have to address the significance of organizational culture on stress formation, since sources of stress can depend on the characteristics of the culture existing in organizations. (Chang and Lu 2007) To a large extend the type of organization culture influence the behavior of employees at work places, as such the culture would either promote or suppress cooperation and harmony among employees and management to an extent that they will be positively or negatively affected. Therefore, negative culture based on blame or denial of responsibilities, as been indicated in the most reported stress and depression cases among employees. Individuals from different cultures might neither understand nor appreciate the cultural differences of the communities in which they are working at, this could then lead to additional stress. Therefore, individuals working at new workstations encounter different cultures because of culture shock, which could lead to mental health disorders stress, anxiety, depression and feelings of alienation and marginalization could become highly stressed. (Brown and Uehara 2008) According to Reskin suggested that, among most workers, the most commonly reported sources of job stress were lack of regular feedback about how well I am doing my job, lack of promotion opportunities, uncertainty about how amalgamations will influence me, workload, and lack of necessary equipment and infrastructure support. Lack of participation in decision-making by staff members, poor communication in the organization from the managers and between staff (Reskin 2008) poor social environment, lack of support from co-workers and supervisors aggravates stress. (Stress 2008) The job stressors affecting the employees included role conflict and ambiguity, lack of promotion opportunities and feedback, lack of participation in decision-making, excessive workload, unsatisfactory working conditions and interpersonal relations. The reported stressors have either positive or negative association with the physical health of the employees, their performance and overall satisfaction about their jobs as well as their commitment. Although the current study will assess the effect of the stressors on the nursing home staff members, such job stressors and their impact on the organizational performance of employees that would eventually affect the performance of nursing homes. Managers at the workplaces should identify the sources of stress first. Understanding where the stress is coming from and recognizing its effects allows managers to understand how to avoid stress and reduce its harmful effects. Moreover, knowing the sources can be helpful in choosing a method to deal with stress. Although it is not possible to control all of life’s events, how to identify the sources of stress may be a complex task, but through right understanding and with good planning, stress and its causes can be avoided and managed productively. Success always belongs to managers who can manage stress effectively, eliminate emotional problems, sustain mental well-being, and encourage subordinates to work in the midst of stressful environments. Works cited Brown Z A, and Uehara D L. ‘Coping with teacher stress’ A research synthesis for Pacific education. 2008. Web Chang K. and Lu L. ‘Characteristics of organizational culture, stressors and wellbeing: The case of Taiwanese organizations.’ Journal of Managerial Psychology, 2007, 22, 549-568. Print Channuwong S. ‘Creating positive feeling: How to reduce stress and improve mental health.’ Germany, USA, and UK: Lambert Academic Publishing. Print Coetzee M. and M. de Villiers. ‘Sources of job stress, work engagement and career orientations of employees in a South African financial institution.’ Southern African Business Review, 2010, 14 Print Coetzer CF and Rothmann S. ‘Job demands, job resources and work engagement of employees in a manufacturing organization’, Southern African Business Review, 2007, 11(1): 17–32. Print Mirela B and Mădălina-Adriana C. ‘Organizational stress and its impact on work performance’ University of Oradea, Faculty of Economics. 333-337 Print Nadeem M. ‘A study on occupational stress experienced by private and public banks employees in Quetta City.’ Quetta: African Journal of Business Management; 2011. 20(5) 3063-70. Web Reskin, A.’Podcast transcript for working with stress.’ 2008. Web Timms, C., Graham, D., & Cottrell, D. “I just want to teach”: Queensland independent school teachers and their workload. Journal of Educational Administration, 2007 45, 569-586. Print Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, 2007. Print Seibt. ‘Predictors of work ability in occupations with psychological stress.’ J. Public Health, 2008 17: 9-18. Print Stress. ‘More information: ‘Stress at work.’ 2008 Web Willem, Buelens , Jonghe , 2007,’Impact of organizational structure on nurses' job satisfaction: a Questionnaire survey’ International Journal of Nursing Studies. 2007. 44, 1011-1020. 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