Workplace Stress: Definition, Causes, and Management
Many things in life induce stress, including work. Workplace stress is the body’s natural response to threats in your work space, real or perceived. It can have several origins at once or result from a single event. Unfortunately, most of our problems today cannot be solved with a “fight or flight” response, and when stress occurs in heaps, your mental and physical health gets severely impacted.
Factors That Affect Workplace Stress
In every type of work space, whether a private office, a virtual office, or a coworking space, there are factors that can contribute to increased workplace stress. These factors can be task-related, such as heavy workload, autonomy, and lack of training; or career-related, such as underpromotion, lack of security, and growth opportunities; or interpersonal, such as discrimination, lack of support, and personal safety.
The Impact of Workplace Stress
Workplace stress levels vary between different professions and industries. Some are more prone to it than others, but the full-time employee with the lowest job control and highest job demands is the most at risk of strain. Workplace stress not only adds an increased risk of anxiety, burnout, and depression, but it also stimulates unhealthy behaviors such as emotional outbursts, mood swings, and poor sleep and dietary patterns.
Workplace stress can also take a toll on your body, making you experience, at times, headaches, insomnia, fatigue, chest pains, a fast heart rate, high blood pressure, and more. This increases the number of employee sick days and doctor visits, ultimately increasing healthcare costs for employers and harming the organization’s performance.
The causes and effects of workplace stress vary greatly, but thankfully, so do the strategies for reducing and preventing it.
Managing Workplace Stress
Workplace stress is preventable. Learning how to manage it ensures you have the right tools to protect your employees’ well-being for years.
Here are a few things you can do to help your employees thrive at the office:
1. Assess Workplace Stress Risks
Employers should assess and consider the potential stressors that can cause high levels of strain and the employees affected by them. To prevent and alleviate stressors, immediate and proactive measures should be implemented.
2. Intervene When Necessary
In certain situations, employees may look to their employers and managers to intervene and manage difficult stressors. Workplace harassment, discrimination, and abuse are some of the cases that need a manager’s mediation. Step in when necessary and enforce your organization’s code of ethics.
3. Create a Safe and Healthy Work Environment
A safe work environment is vital when it comes to reducing workplace stress. It’s the employers’ responsibility to create productive environments where employees can voice opinions and have healthy confrontations. In addition to preventing future disagreements, this also allows for open-mindedness and more innovative ideas.
MEDAD‘s workspace solutions and serviced offices offer a safe, creative, entrepreneurial environment where real work gets done. These solutions include private offices, coworking spaces, virtual offices, meeting rooms, and more.
Workplace stress is a silent, and often dismissed, killer of productivity. Not only does it impair employees, but it also contributes significantly to a decline in the organization’s overall success, which is why employers should strive to create a safe, healthy, and productive work atmosphere.