Читать реферат по английскому: "Work Stress Essay Research Paper Work Stress10" Страница 2

(Назад) (Cкачать работу)

psychological reactions to consistently high stress levels: repression of

emotion, displacement of anger, and isolation.

Repression of emotions occur often in human service professionals such as

policemen or accountants. Their roles demand that they suppress their emotions

when interacting with clients. Thus, when the stress levels begin to rise as

they deal with more and more clients, they would put up an even greater

resistance to their own emotions . Over time, the professional may not be able

to relax that emotional resistance. All their emotions would be masked and

retained within themselves, resulting ultimately in mental and emotional

disorders.

In stressful times, employees are often displeased or angry with something.

However, there are usually limited channels in which employees can express their

views. Since opinions, views, and feelings cannot always be expressed to anyone

to change the current situation, there would be an accumulation of anger and

frustration within the individual. Up to a certain point, the anger would be

released, usually at the wrong person or time, such as colleagues, clients, or

family members. This symptom has a tremendous impact on society because there

is a potential that it may hurt others people. Take for example the US postal

shootings over last few years. All of them were a result of accumulated anger

and frustration of US postal workers where they eventually released all that

pent-up anger at one time towards other colleagues. Moreover, many cases of

spousal abuse, child abuse, alcohol abuse, dysfunctional families are a result

of overstressed employees unable to diffuse or cope with the anger and

frustration building up within them.

The 1978 IACP’s report stated that isolation is a common side-effect of working

under tremendous stress. For many service practitioners, they are not always

readily welcomed by the clients that they serve. A prime example would be

policemen who are shunned often by the public. Over time, a feeling of

isolation and rejection would envelop the person. The natural thing to do would

be to withdraw from others who do not understand their plight, resulting in

profound human loneliness .

The symptoms mentioned above are usually long-term effects. There are many

other short term, psychological effects of stress that can be readily seen or

felt. The following is by no means a

definitive list of mental effects as it only illustrates some of the symptoms

that could readily identified in a person under constant stress : 1. Constant

feeling of uneasiness 2. Irritability towards others 3. General sense of boredom

4. Recurring feelings of hopelessness in life 5. Anxiety regarding money 6.

Irrational fear of disease 7. Fear of death 8. Feelings of suppressed anger 9.

Withdrawn and isolated 10. Feelings of rejection by others (low self-esteem) 11.

Feelings of despair at failing as a parent 12. Feelings of dread toward an

approaching weekend 13. Reluctance to vacation14. Sense that problems cannot be

discussed with others 15. Short attention span 16. Claustrophobic

3.0 Management’s Role in Reducing Work Stress

Employee stress can have an enormous impact to an organization in terms of cost.

As many studies have shown, there is a high correlation between stress and job

performance. At moderate levels, stress is beneficial in that it can cause

individuals to perform their jobs better and attain higher job performance.

However, at high levels, stress can decrease productivity instead. This is the

case often seen in employees at many organizations . Furthermore, aside from

costs associated with lost productivity, there are costs with respect to stress-

related absenteeism and organizational medical expenses. Specifically, these

include costs of lost company time, increases in work-related accidents

disrupting production, increases in health care costs and health insurance

premiums, and most importantly, decreases in productivity .

There are numerous methods that organizations could adopt to reduce undue stress

in their employees. However, measures taken to counter this problem are usually

tailored specifically for the particular organization. Therefore, this report

has chosen two separate actions which are fundamental to most organizations that

management can take.

3.1 Reduction of Employee Stress as an Organizational Policy

The first step any organization should take to help its employees reduce and

cope with stress is to incorporate into the company policies a positive and

specific intent on reducing undue stress. This would indicate that top

management is committed to such a stress reduction program. Furthermore, the

amendment to the policies should also include a recognition that this initiative

will benefit the achievement of other organizational goals by enhancing the

productivity of employees through lowered stress levels . After the inclusion

of the broad mission goal of reducing employee stress, management should draft

out plans which specifically lays out the provisions to accomplish that goal.

As earlier mentioned, there are many approaches to stress reduction, thus the

provisions should detail only the methods specific to the organization. For

example, they could specify that employees undergo periodic physical and

psychological examinations and personnel surveys to ascertain

Похожие работы