According to a Center for Disease Control and Prevention article and a survey done by Northwestern National Life, 40% of workers today report that they consider their job as being “very or extremely stressful.” And according to Northwestern National Life, one-fourth of employees view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives. Job stress has become a very common and costly problem that affects the United States workforce, and a problem that needs to be addressed by organizations and individuals as well. For more about this topic follow the links below.
What you need to know about workplace stress
TORONTO – John Tory was officially presented as mayor of Toronto Tuesday during an afternoon ceremony at city hall.
The job is no doubt stressful: it’s at least four years long, 24 hours a day, includes no scheduled vacation time and puts every decision into the media spotlight.
So what is stress? Physiologically, we think of stress as the brain’s response to any demand. And different types of stress have different effects – you can have stress from a sudden event like losing a job, or a traumatic event like an accident, or just routine stress related to the everyday pressures of life – which politicians feel a lot of because of the scrutiny they’re under.
The commonly referred to fight or flight response is the body’s response to stress. It is a mechanism that evolved thousands of years ago to respond to situations like being attacked by an animal.
‘Medicalising’ workplace stress could worsen staff morale, psychologists warn
Low morale is too often treated as an “adjustment disorder”, which risks worsening the worker’s condition. Photo: Gabrielle Charotte
At least one third of workplace stress claims are due to “low morale” but are regularly being treated as clinical disorders, Australian psychologists have warned.
With workplace mental health problems costing businesses $10 billion a year, an Australian Psychological Society conference this week heard that more than 30 per cent of compensation claims were morale-related and therefore preventable.
Clinical and organisational psychologist Peter Cotton told the conference low morale was too often treated as an “adjustment disorder”, which risked worsening the worker’s condition.
“‘Medicalising’ this issue could be counter-productive and make the employee worse,” he said.
Workplace Stress Can Boil Over Months Later
New research suggests workplace stress can lead to counterproductive workplace behaviors that may not surface until weeks or months afterward.
It is common knowledge that a variety of workplace issues ranging from a seasonal surge in business, or a new manager, can lead to stress that results in immediate problems.
However, the impact of the stress may be underestimated as problems may surface down the road.
San Francisco State University organizational psychologist Dr. Kevin Eschleman determined many employees wait weeks or months before engaging in “counterproductive work behaviors,” like taking a longer lunch or stealing office supplies.
As a result, this behavior, which by some estimates costs businesses billions of dollars annually, may actually be far more expensive.
“People don’t just respond immediately with these deviant behaviors. They may also have a delayed response that isn’t caught by the organization,” said Eschleman.
“That means the organization is not taking into account long-term costs associated with these delayed behaviors.”
