Occupational stress is
psychological stress
In psychology, stress is a feeling of emotional strain and pressure. Stress is a type of psychological pain. Small amounts of stress may be beneficial, as it can improve athletic performance, motivation and reaction to the environment. Exces ...
related to one's
job
Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...
. Occupational stress refers to a chronic condition. Occupational stress can be managed by understanding what the stressful conditions at work are and taking steps to remediate those conditions. Occupational stress can occur when workers do not feel supported by supervisors or coworkers, feel as if they have little control over the work they perform, or find that their efforts on the job are incommensurate with the job's rewards. Occupational stress is a concern for both employees and employers because stressful job conditions are related to employees' emotional well-being, physical health, and job performance. A landmark study conducted by the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
and the
International Labour Organization
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and o ...
found that exposure to long working hours, which are theorized to operate through increased psycho-social occupational stress, is the occupational risk factor with the largest attributable burden of disease, according to these official estimates causing an estimated 745,000 workers to die from
ischemic heart disease
Coronary artery disease (CAD), also called coronary heart disease (CHD), ischemic heart disease (IHD), myocardial ischemia, or simply heart disease, involves the reduction of blood flow to the heart muscle due to build-up of atherosclerotic pla ...
and
stroke
A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...
events in 2016.
A number of disciplines within psychology are concerned with occupational stress including
occupational health psychology
Occupational health psychology (OHP) is an interdisciplinary area of psychology that is concerned with the health and safety of workers.Schonfeld, I.S., & Chang, C.-H. (2017). ''Occupational health psychology: Work, stress, and health''. New York, ...
,
human factors and ergonomics
Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...
,
epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population.
It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...
,
occupational medicine
Occupational medicine, until 1960 called industrial medicine, is the branch of medicine which is concerned with the maintenance of health in the workplace, including prevention and treatment of diseases and injuries, with secondary objectives ...
,
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
,
industrial and organizational psychology
Industrial and organizational psychology (I-O psychology), an applied discipline within psychology, is the science of human behavior in the workplace. Depending on the country or region of the world, I-O psychology is also known as occupational ...
, and
industrial engineering
Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex process (engineering), processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, kno ...
.
Psychological theories of worker stress
A number of psychological theories
at least partly explain the occurrence of occupational stress. The theories include the demand-control-support model, the effort-reward imbalance model, the person-environment fit model, job characteristics model, the diathesis stress model, and the job-demands resources model.
Demand-control-support model
The
demand-control-support (DCS) model, originally the demand-control (DC) model, has been the most influential psychological theory in occupational stress research.
The DC model advances the idea that the combination of low levels of work-related decision latitude (i.e., autonomy and control over the job) and high psychological workloads is harmful to the health of workers. High workloads and low levels of decision latitude either in combination or singly can lead to job strain, the term often used in the field of
occupational health psychology
Occupational health psychology (OHP) is an interdisciplinary area of psychology that is concerned with the health and safety of workers.Schonfeld, I.S., & Chang, C.-H. (2017). ''Occupational health psychology: Work, stress, and health''. New York, ...
to reflect poorer mental or physical health.
The DC model has been extended to include work-related social isolation or lack of support from coworkers and supervisors to become the DCS model. Evidence indicates that high workload, low levels of decision latitude, and low levels of support either in combination or singly lead to poorer health.
The combination of high workload, low levels of decision latitude, and low levels of support has also been termed iso-strain.
Effort-reward imbalance model
The
effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model focuses on the relationship between the worker's efforts and the work-related rewards the employee receives. The ERI model suggests that work marked by high levels of effort and low rewards leads to strain (e.g., psychological symptoms, physical health problems). The rewards of the job can be tangible like pay or intangible like appreciation and fair treatment. Another facet of the model is that overcommitment to the job can fuel imbalance.
Person–environment fit model
The
person–environment fit model underlines the match between a person and his/her work environment. The closeness of the match influences the individual's health. For healthy working conditions, it is necessary that employees' attitudes, skills, abilities, and resources match the demands of their job. The greater the gap or misfit (either subjective or objective) between the person and his/her work environment, the greater the strain.
Strains can include mental and physical health problems. Misfit can also lead to lower
productivity
Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...
and other work problems.
The P–E fit model was popular in the 1970s and the early 1980s; however, since the late 1980s interest in the model has waned because of difficulties representing P–E discrepancies mathematically and statistical models linking P–E fit to strain have been problematic.
Job characteristics model
The
job characteristics model focuses on factors such as skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. These job factors are thought to psychological states such as a sense of meaningfulness and knowledge acquisition. The theory holds that positive or negative job characteristics give rise to a number of cognitive and behavioral outcomes such as extent of worker motivation, satisfaction, and absenteeism. Hackman and Oldham (1980) developed the Job Diagnostic Survey to assess these job characteristics and help organizational leaders make decisions regarding job redesign.
Diathesis-stress model
The
diathesis–stress model
The diathesis-stress model, also known as the vulnerability–stress model, is a psychological theory that attempts to explain a disorder, or its trajectory, as the result of an interaction between a predispositional vulnerability, the diathesis ...
looks the individual's susceptibility to stressful life experiences, i.e., the diathesis. Individuals differ on that diathesis or vulnerability. The model suggests that the individual's diathesis is part of the context in which he or she encounters job stressors at various levels of intensity.
[NIOSH (1999)]
Stress at Work.
U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, DHHS (NIOSH) Publication Number 99-101. If the individual has a very high tolerance (is relatively invulnerable), an intense stressor may not lead to a mental or physical problem. However, if the stressor (e.g., high workload, difficult coworker relationship) outstrips the individual's diathesis, then health problems may ensue.
Job demands-resources model
In the
job demands-resources model The job demands-resources model (JD-R model) is an occupational stress model that suggests strain is a response to imbalance between demands on the individual and the resources he or she has to deal with those demands. The JD-R was introduced as an ...
model derives from both
conservation of resources theory and the DCS model. Demands refer to the size of the workload, as in the DCS model. Resources refer to the physical (e.g., equipment), psychological (e.g., the incumbent's job-related skills and knowledge), social (e.g., supportiveness of supervisors), and organizational resources (e.g., how much task-related discretion is given the worker) that are available to satisfactorily perform the job.
High workloads and low levels of resources are related job strain.
[
]
Factors related to the above mentioned psychological theories of occupational stress
* ''Role conflict
Role conflict occurs when there are incompatible demands placed upon a person relating to their job or position. People experience role conflict when they find themselves pulled in various directions as they try to respond to the many statuses th ...
'' involves the worker facing incompatible demands.[Beehr, T. A. (1995). ''Psychological stress in the workplace''. New York, NY: Routledge.] Workers are pulled in conflicting directions in trying to respond to those demands.
* '' Role ambiguity'' refers to a lack of informational clarity with regard to the duties a worker's role in an organization requires. Like role conflict, role ambiguity is a source of strain.
* ''Coping
Coping refers to conscious strategies used to reduce unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviours and can be individual or social.
Theories of coping
Hundreds of coping strategies have been proposed in an attempt to ...
'' refers to the individual's efforts to either prevent the occurrence of a stressor or mitigate the distress the impact of the stressor is likely to cause. Research on the ability of the employees to cope with the specific workplace stressors is equivocal; coping in the workplace may even be counterproductive. Pearlin and Schooler advanced the view that because work roles, unlike such personally organized roles as parent and spouse, tend to be ''impersonally'' organized, work roles are not a context conducive to successful coping. Pearlin and Schooler suggested that the impersonality of workplaces may even result in occupational coping efforts making conditions worse for the employee.
* ''Organizational climate Organizational climate (sometimes known as corporate climate) is a concept that has academic meaning in the fields of organizational behavior and I/O psychology as well as practical meaning in the business world There is continued scholarly debate ...
'' refers to employees' collective or consensus appraisal of the organizational work environment. Organizational climate takes into account many dimensions of the work environment (e.g., safety climate; mistreatment climate; work-family climate). The communication, management style, and extent of worker participation in decision-making are factors that contribute to one or another type of organizational climate.
Negative health and other effects
Physiological reactions to stress can have consequences for health over time. Researchers have been studying how stress affects the cardiovascular system, as well as how work stress can lead to hypertension
Hypertension (HTN or HT), also known as high blood pressure (HBP), is a long-term medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries is persistently elevated. High blood pressure usually does not cause symptoms. Long-term high bl ...
and coronary artery disease
Coronary artery disease (CAD), also called coronary heart disease (CHD), ischemic heart disease (IHD), myocardial ischemia, or simply heart disease, involves the reduction of blood flow to the heart muscle due to build-up of atherosclerotic pla ...
. These diseases, along with other stress-induced illnesses tend to be quite common in American work-places. There are a number of physiological reactions to stress including the following:
*Blood is shunted to the brain and large muscle groups, and away from extremities and skin.
*Activity in an area near the brain stem known as the reticular activating system
The reticular formation is a set of interconnected nuclei that are located throughout the brainstem. It is not anatomically well defined, because it includes neurons located in different parts of the brain. The neurons of the reticular formatio ...
increases, causing a state of keen alertness as well as sharpening of hearing and vision.
*Epinephrine
Adrenaline, also known as epinephrine, is a hormone and medication which is involved in regulating visceral functions (e.g., respiration). It appears as a white microcrystalline granule. Adrenaline is normally produced by the adrenal glands and ...
is released into the blood.
*The HPA axis HPA may refer to:
Organizations
* Harry Potter Alliance, a charity
* Halifax Port Authority, Canada
* Hamburg Port Authority, Germany
* Hawaii Preparatory Academy, a school in Hawaii, US
* Health Protection Agency, UK
* Heerespersonalamt, the Ger ...
is activated.
*There is increased activity in the sympathetic nervous system
The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is one of the three divisions of the autonomic nervous system, the others being the parasympathetic nervous system and the enteric nervous system. The enteric nervous system is sometimes considered part of th ...
.
*Cortisol
Cortisol is a steroid hormone, in the glucocorticoid class of hormones. When used as a medication, it is known as hydrocortisone.
It is produced in many animals, mainly by the ''zona fasciculata'' of the adrenal cortex in the adrenal gland ...
levels are elevated.
*Energy-providing compounds of glucose and fatty acids are released into the bloodstream.
*The action immune and digestive systems are temporarily reduced.
Studies have shown an association between occupational stress and "health risk behaviors". Occupational stress has shown to be linked with an increase in alcohol consumption among men and an increase in body weight.
Occupational stress accounts for more than 10% of work-related health claims. Many studies suggest that psychologically demanding jobs that allow employees little control over the work process increase the risk of cardiovascular disease
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels. CVD includes coronary artery diseases (CAD) such as angina and myocardial infarction (commonly known as a heart attack). Other CVDs include stroke, h ...
. Research indicates that job stress increases the risk for development of back and upper-extremity musculoskeletal disorders
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are injuries or pain in the human musculoskeletal system, including the joints, ligaments, muscles, nerves, tendons, and structures that support limbs, neck and back. MSDs can arise from a sudden exertion (e.g., li ...
. Stress at work can also increase the risk of acquiring an infection and the risk of accidents at work.
Occupational stress can lead to three types of strains: behavioral (e.g., absenteeism), physical (e.g., headaches), and psychological (e.g., depressed mood). Job stress has been linked to a broad array of conditions, including psychological disorders
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...
(e.g., depression, anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
, post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...
), job dissatisfaction, maladaptive behaviors (e.g., substance abuse
Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is the use of a drug in amounts or by methods which are harmful to the individual or others. It is a form of substance-related disorder. Differing definitions of drug abuse are used in public health, ...
), cardiovascular disease, and musculoskeletal disorders.[Schonfeld, I.S., & Chang, C.-H. (2017). ''Occupational health psychology: Work, stress, and health''. New York: Springer Publishing Company.]
Stressful job conditions can also lead to poor work performance, counterproductive work behavior
Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) is employee behavior that goes against the legitimate interests of an organization. These behaviors can harm organizations or people in organizations including employees a ...
, higher absenteeism
Absenteeism is a habitual pattern of absence from a duty or obligation without good reason. Generally, absenteeism is unplanned absences. Absenteeism has been viewed as an indicator of poor individual performance, as well as a breach of an implici ...
, and injury
An injury is any physiological damage to living tissue caused by immediate physical stress. An injury can occur intentionally or unintentionally and may be caused by blunt trauma, penetrating trauma, burning, toxic exposure, asphyxiation, o ...
. Chronically high levels of job stress diminish a worker's quality of life and increase the cost of the health benefits the employer provides. A study of short haul truckers found that high levels of job stress were related to increased risk of occupational injury. Research conducted in Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
showed a more than two-fold increase in the risk of stroke among men with job strain Job strain is a form of psychosocial stress that occurs in the workplace. One of the most common forms of stress, it is characterized by a combination of low salaries, high demands, and low levels of control over things such as raises and paid time ...
(combination of high job demand and low job control). The Japanese use the term karoshi
, which can be translated into "overwork death", is a Japanese term relating to occupation-related sudden death.
The most common medical causes of karoshi deaths are heart attacks and strokes due to stress and malnourishment or fasting. Menta ...
to reflect death from overwork.
High levels of stress are associated with substantial increases in health service utilization. For example, workers who report experiencing stress at work also show excessive health care utilization. In a 1998 study of 46,000 workers, health care costs were nearly 50% greater for workers reporting high levels of stress in comparison to "low risk" workers. The increment rose to nearly 150%, an increase of more than $1,700 per person annually, for workers reporting high levels of both stress and depression. Health care costs increase by 200% in those with depression and high occupational stress. Additionally, periods of disability
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be Cognitive disability, cognitive, Developmental disability, dev ...
due to job stress tend to be much longer than disability periods for other occupational injuries and illnesses.
Occupational stress has negative effects for organizations and employers. Occupational stress contributes to turnover and absenteeism.
Gender
In today’s workplaces every individual will experience work-related stress and the level of stress varies person-to-person. Different aspects of a person’s life will affect their stress levels through work. In comparing women and men, there is a higher risk for women to experience stress, anxiety and others forms of psychological stress in response to their work life than there is for men due to societal expectations of women. Such as women having more domestic responsibilities, the fact that women receive less pay for doing similar work as men and that societally women are expected to say "yes" to any requests given to them. These societal expectations added into a work environment can create a very psychologically stressful environment for women, without any added stressors from work. Desmarais and Alksnis suggest two explanations for the greater psychological distress of women. First, the genders may differ in their awareness of negative feelings, leading women to be more likely to express and report strains, whereas men more likely to deny and inhibit such feelings. Second, the demands to balance work and family result in more overall stress for women that leads to increased strain.
Stereotype threat is a phenomenon that can have effects on everyone, it highly depends on the situation the individual is. Some of the proposed mechanisms that are involved with stereotype threat include, but are not limited to: anxiety, negative cognition (where you are focused on stereotype-thinking), lowered motivation, lowered performance expectation (where you do worse on something because the expectation is that you won’t be able to do well anyways), decrease in working memory capacity, etc.
Women are also more vulnerable to sexual harassment and assault than men. These authors are referring to the very real "double burden" hypothesis. In addition, women, on average, earn less than their male counterparts.
According to a recent report by the European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
(EU),[Parent-Thirion, A., Biletta, I., Cabrita, J., Vargas Llave, O., Vermeylen, G., Wilczyńska, A., & Wilkens, M. (2017). Sixth European Working Conditions Survey – Overview report (2017 update). Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union; Eurofund.] in the EU and affiliated countries the skills gap between men and women has narrowed in the ten years preceding 2015. In the EU, when compared to men, women typically spend fewer hours in paid work but instead spend more hours in unpaid work.
Causes of occupational stress
Both the broad categories and the specific categories of occupational stress mentioned in the following paragraph fall under different psychological theories of worker stress, which include demand-control-support model, the effort-reward imbalance model, the person-environment fit model, job characteristics model, the diathesis stress model, and the job-demands resources model. (All these models are expanded upon earlier in this Wikipedia page).
The causes of occupational stress can be placed into a broad category of what the main occupational stressor is and a more specific category of what causes occupational stress. The broad category of occupational stressors include some of the following: bad management practices, the job content and its demands, a lack of support or autonomy and much more. The more specific causes of occupational stress includes some of the following: working long hours, having insufficient skills for the job, discrimination and harassment and much more.
General working conditions
Although the importance of individual differences cannot be ignored, scientific evidence suggests that certain working conditions are stressful to most people. Such evidence argues for a greater emphasis on working conditions as the key source of job stress, and for job redesign as a primary prevention strategy.[ In the ten years leading up to 2015,] workers in the EU and affiliated countries have seen improvement in noise exposure but worsening in exposure to chemicals. Approximately, one-third of EU workers experience tight deadlines and must work quickly. Those in the health sector are exposed to the highest levels of work intensity. In order to meet job demands, a little more than 20% of EU workers must work during their free time. Approximately one-third of EU workers in lower-level jobs have some decision latitude. By contrast, about 80% of managers have significant levels of latitude.
General working conditions that induce occupational stress may also be aspects of the physical environment of one's job. For example, the noise level, lighting, and temperature are all components of one's working environment. If these factors are not adequate for a successful working environment, one can experience changes in mood and arousal, which in turn creates more difficulty to successfully do the job right.
Workload
In an occupational setting, dealing with workload can be stressful and serve as a stressor
A stressor is a chemical or biological agent, environmental condition, external stimulus or an event seen as causing stress to an organism. Psychologically speaking, a stressor can be events or environments that individuals might consider demandin ...
for employees. There are three aspects of workload that can be stressful.
:* ''Quantitative workload or overload'': Having more work to do than can be accomplished comfortably.
:* ''Qualitative workload'': Having work that is too difficult.
:* ''Underload'': Having work that fails to use a worker's skills and abilities.
Workload as a work demand is a major component of the demand-control model of stress.[ This model suggests that jobs with high demands can be stressful, especially when the individual has low control over the job. In other words, control serves as a buffer or protective factor when demands or workload is high. This model was expanded into the demand-control-support model that suggests that the combination of high control and high social support at work buffers the effects of high demands.
As a work demand, workload is also relevant to the ]job demands-resources model The job demands-resources model (JD-R model) is an occupational stress model that suggests strain is a response to imbalance between demands on the individual and the resources he or she has to deal with those demands. The JD-R was introduced as an ...
of stress that suggests that jobs are stressful when demands (e.g., workload) exceed the individual's resources to deal with them.[
]
Long hours
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics and serves as a principal agency of t ...
in 2018, approximately 13,060,000 Americans or 8.7% of the labor force worked 41–48 hours per week. Approximately 14,734,000 Americans or 9.8% of the labor force worked 49–59 hours per week. And approximately 9,877,000 Americans or 6.7% of the labor force worked 60 or more hours per week. A meta-analysis involving more than 600,000 individuals and 25 studies indicated that, controlling for confounding factors, working long hours is related to a small but significantly higher risk of cardiovascular disease and slightly higher risk of stroke.
Status
A person's status in the workplace is related to occupational stress because jobs associated with lower socioeconomic status (SES) typically provide workers less control and greater insecurity than higher-SES jobs. Lower levels of job control and greater job insecurity are related to reduced mental and physical health.
Salary
The types of jobs that pay workers higher salaries tend to provide them with greater job-related autonomy. As indicated above, job-related autonomy is associated with better health. A problem in research on occupational stress is how to "unconfound" the relationship between stressful working conditions, such as low levels of autonomy, and salary. Because higher levels of income buy resources (e.g., better insurance, higher quality food) that help to improve or maintain health, researchers need to better specify the extent to which differences in working conditions and differences in pay affect health.
Workplace bullying
Workplace bullying involves the chronic mistreatment of a worker by one or more other workers or managers. Bullying involves a power imbalance in which the target has less power in the unit or the organization than the bully or bullies. Bullying is neither a one-off episode nor is a conflict between two workers who are equals in terms of power. There has to be a power imbalance for there to be bullying. Bullying tactics include verbal abuse
Verbal abuse (also known as verbal aggression, verbal attack, verbal violence, verbal assault, psychic aggression, or psychic violence) is a type of psychological/mental abuse that involves the use of oral, gestured, and written language direct ...
, psychological abuse
Psychological abuse, often called emotional abuse, is a form of abuse characterized by a person subjecting or exposing another person to a behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic ...
, and even physical abuse
Physical abuse is any intentional act causing injury or trauma to another person or animal by way of bodily contact. In most cases, children are the victims of physical abuse, but adults can also be victims, as in cases of domestic violence or wo ...
. The adverse effects of workplace bullying include depression for the worker and lost productivity for the organization.
Narcissism and psychopathy
Thomas suggests that there tends to be a higher level of stress with people who work or interact with a narcissist
Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others.
Narcissism exists on a co ...
, which in turn increases absenteeism
Absenteeism is a habitual pattern of absence from a duty or obligation without good reason. Generally, absenteeism is unplanned absences. Absenteeism has been viewed as an indicator of poor individual performance, as well as a breach of an implici ...
and staff turnover. Boddy finds the same dynamic where there is a corporate psychopath
Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent Anti-social behaviour, antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and Boldness, bold, Disinhibition, disinhibited, and Egotism, egotistical B ...
in the organisation.
Workplace conflict
Interpersonal conflict among people at work has been shown to be one of the most frequently noted stressors for employees. Conflict can be precipitated by workplace harassment. Workplace conflict is also associated with other stressors, such as role conflict
Role conflict occurs when there are incompatible demands placed upon a person relating to their job or position. People experience role conflict when they find themselves pulled in various directions as they try to respond to the many statuses th ...
, role ambiguity, and heavy workload
The term workload can refer to a number of different yet related entities.
An amount of labor
Workload is the amount of work an individual has to do.Jex, S. M. (1998). Stress and job performance: Theory, research, and implications for managerial ...
. Conflict has also been linked to strains such as anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
, depression, physical symptoms, and low levels of job satisfaction
Job satisfaction, employee satisfaction or work satisfaction is a measure of workers' contentedness with their job, whether they like the job or individual aspects or facets of jobs, such as nature of work or supervision. Job satisfaction can be ...
.
Sexual harassment
A review of the literature indicates that sexual harassment, which principally affects women, negatively affects workers' psychological well-being. Other findings suggest that women who experience higher levels of harassment are more likely to perform poorly at work.
Sexual harassment can happen to anyone of any gender and the harasser can be someone of any gender, the harasser does not need to be someone of the opposite sex. The harasser can be someone with a higher position than you, but it is not always the case. You can be harassed by a fellow co-worker, someone from another department or even by someone who is not an employee.
Sexual harassment includes but is not limited to:
* sexual assault
** nonconsensual contact
** rape
** attempted rape
** forcing the victim to perform sexual acts on the attacker
* sending sexually explicit photos or messages to someone else
* exposing yourself to another
* performing sexual acts on self
* verbal harassment
** includes jokes referencing sexual acts
** discussing sexual relations, sexual stories or sexual fantasies
Work–life balance
refers to the extent to which there is equilibrium between work demands and one's personal life outside of work. Workers face increasing challenges to meeting workplace demands and fulfilling their family roles as well as other roles outside of work.
Occupational group
Lower status occupational groups are at higher risk of work-related ill health than higher occupational groups. This is in part due to adverse work and employment conditions. Furthermore, such conditions have greater effects on ill-health to those in lower socio-economic positions.
Prevention/Intervention
A combination of organizational change and stress management can be a useful approach for alleviating or preventing stress at work. Both organizations and employees can employ strategies at organizational and individual levels. Generally, organizational level strategies include job procedure modification and employee assistance programs (EAP). A meta-analysis of experimental studies found that cognitive-behavioral interventions, in comparison to relaxation and organizational interventions, provided the largest effect with regard to improving workers' symptoms of psychological distress. A systematic review of stress-reduction techniques among healthcare workers found that cognitive behavioral training lowered emotional exhaustion and feelings of lack of personal accomplishment.
An occupational stressor that needs to be addressed is the problem of an imbalance between work and life outside of work. The Work, Family, and Health Study was a large-scale intervention study, the purpose of which was to help insure that employees achieve a measure of work–life balance. The intervention strategies included training supervisors to engage in more family-supportive behaviors. Another study component provided employees with increased control over when and where they work. The intervention led to improved home life, better sleep quality, and better safety compliance, mainly for the lowest paid employees.
Many organizations manage occupational stressors associated with health and safety in a fragmented way; for example, one department may house an employee assistance program and another department manages exposures to toxic chemicals. The Total Worker Health Total Worker Health is a trademarked strategy defined as policies, programs, and practices that integrate protection from work-related safety and health hazards with promotion of injury and illness prevention efforts to advance worker well-being. It ...
(TWH) idea, which was initiated by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), provides a strategy in which different levels of worker health promotion activity are programmatically integrated. TWH-type interventions integrate health protection and health promotion components. Health protection components are ordinarily unit- or organization-wide, for example, reducing exposures to aerosols. Health promotion components are more individually oriented, in other words, oriented toward the wellness and/or well-being of individual workers, for example, smoking cessation programs. A review of 17 TWH-type interventions, i.e., interventions that integrate organizational-level occupational safety/health components and individual employee health promotion components, indicated that integrated programs can improve worker health and safety.
Experts from NIOSH recommended a number of practical ways to reduce occupational stress. These include the following:
* Ensure that the workload is in line with workers' capabilities and resources.
* Design jobs to provide meaning, stimulation, and opportunities for workers to use their skills.
* Clearly define workers' roles and responsibilities.
* To reduce workplace stress, managers may monitor the workload given out to the employees. Also while they are being trained they should let employees understand and be notified of stress awareness.
* Give workers opportunities to participate in decisions and actions affecting their jobs.
* Improve communications-reduce uncertainty about career development and future employment prospects.
* Provide opportunities for social interaction among workers.
* Establish work schedules that are compatible with demands and responsibilities outside the job.
* Combat workplace discrimination
Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...
(based on race, gender, national origin, religion or language).
* Bringing in an objective outsider such as a consultant to suggest a fresh approach to persistent problems.[Bittel, Lester R. Management Skills for Success. ]Alexander Hamilton Institute
The Alexander Hamilton Institute is a former institute for business education in New York City founded in 1909, and dissolved in the 1980s. The Alexander Hamilton Institute was a corporation engaged in collecting, organizing and transmitting busin ...
Incorporated, 1984. Print.
* Introducing a participative leadership style to involve as many people as possible to resolve stress-producing problems.
* Encourage work–life balance through family-friendly benefits and policies
An insurance company conducted several studies on the effects of stress prevention programs in hospital settings. Program activities included (1) employee and management education on job stress, (2) changes in hospital policies and procedures to reduce organizational sources of stress, and (3) the establishment of employee assistance programs. In one study, the frequency of medication errors
A medical error is a preventable adverse effect of care ("iatrogenesis"), whether or not it is evident or harmful to the patient. This might include an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis or treatment of a disease, injury, syndrome, behavior, i ...
declined by 50% after prevention activities were implemented in a 700-bed hospital. In a second study, there was a 70% reduction in malpractice
In the law of torts, malpractice, also known as professional negligence, is an "instance of negligence or incompetence on the part of a professional".Malpractice definition,
Professionals who may become the subject of malpractice actions inc ...
claims in 22 hospitals that implemented stress prevention activities. In contrast, there was no reduction in claims in a matched group of 22 hospitals that did not implement stress prevention activities.
There is evidence that remote work
Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, ware ...
could reduce job stress. One reason is that it provides employees more control over how they complete their work. Remote work
Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, ware ...
ers reported more job satisfaction and less desire to find a new job, less stress, improved work/life balance and higher performance rating by their managers.
One study modeled scenario-based training as a means to reduce occupational stress by providing simulated experience prior to performing a task.
Signs and symptoms of excessive job and workplace stress
Signs and symptoms of excessive job and workplace stress include:
Occupations concerned with reducing job stress
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, occupational health psychology
Occupational health psychology (OHP) is an interdisciplinary area of psychology that is concerned with the health and safety of workers.Schonfeld, I.S., & Chang, C.-H. (2017). ''Occupational health psychology: Work, stress, and health''. New York, ...
(OHP) has made occupational stress a major research focus. Occupational health psychologists seek to reduce occupational stress by working with individuals and changing the workplace to make it less stressful. Industrial and organizational psychologists also have skills that bear on occupational stress (e.g., job design
Work design (also referred to as job design or task design) is an area of research and practice within industrial and organizational psychology, and is concerned with the "content and organization of one's work tasks, activities, relationships, an ...
), they can also contribute to alleviating job stress.
The CDC
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...
states that "many psychologists have argued that the psychology field needs to take a more active role in research and practice to prevent occupational stress, illness, and injury," which is what the relatively new field of occupational health psychology
Occupational health psychology (OHP) is an interdisciplinary area of psychology that is concerned with the health and safety of workers.Schonfeld, I.S., & Chang, C.-H. (2017). ''Occupational health psychology: Work, stress, and health''. New York, ...
is "all about".[Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Accessed December, 2019). Occupational Health Psychology (OHP). Atlanta: Author]
/ref> According to Spector, other subdisciplines within psychology had been relatively absent from research on occupational stress.
Occupational stress in the United Kingdom
Occupational stress identified as a major cause of economic loss
Occupational stress has been found to be one of the most important causes of lost working-days in the UK and so the reduction of occupational stress has been a long-standing government target and strategic aim of the Health and Safety Executive
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is a UK government agency responsible for the encouragement, regulation and enforcement of workplace health, safety and welfare, and for research into occupational risks in Great Britain. It is a non-depar ...
(HSE).
The HSE Management Standards
The HSE is responsible for the inspection of workplaces and for bringing prosecutions when regulations are breached. In 2004 the HSE published the Management Standards as a guide for employers to help them understand and control the causes of occupational stress. The Management Standards identify six areas of management behaviour that have been identified as potential causes of employee occupational stress: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. Managers who fail to meet the standards are potential hazards to the health of the employees that they manage. Thus an employer that produces a work environment in which there are high demands, little prior consultation before the introduction of change, low levels of worker control, little support and a failure to manage interpersonal relationships will be subjecting employees to risks that are known to be associated with increased levels of occupational stress, as with the Demand Control Support model.
Occupational stress and the law
Legal requirement for employers to control the causes of occupational stress in the workplace
In the UK a legal requirement to manage such risks is provided by the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974c 37 (abbreviated to "HSWA 1974", "HASWA" or "HASAWA") is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that defines the fundamental structure and authority for the encouragement, regulation and enfor ...
as amended by the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. The latter regulations direct the production of risk assessments for known hazards, including those known to cause occupational stress. A failure to follow these regulations and to produce the risk assessments for occupational stress, as with other hazards, is a criminal offence, subject to fines and/or a custodial sentence. Thus, employers have a responsibility, before any occupational stress injuries are caused, to produce written assessments of the hazards that managers themselves might pose to their employees through their uncontrolled actions. An example of such uncontrolled action, that would fail to take account of the known hazards, would be to introduce changes to the workplace without first consulting the employees who will be affected by such changes; this is also referred to as the mushroom method of management. A risk assessment of the management practices, before any injury is known to be caused, would lead to the control measure of a policy that directed managers to consult with employees before introducing changes to the work environment.
Enforcement action by the HSE
As revealed by a Freedom of Information Request, the HSE took action against the West Dorset NHS General Hospital Trust in 2003 following a report that the management were not handling claims of bullying and harassment. This followed the Trust telling an employee, who was off sick due to the stress from bullying, that they could not guarantee that the same things would not happen to him again. The outcome of the employee's complaint to the HSE was the issue of an Improvement Notice by the HSE. This informed the Trust that they were contravening the statutory provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, Section 2 and Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety Regulations 1999 as: "You have failed to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of your employees from exposure to work related stressors". At this stage the HSE Management Standards were in draft form but their principles were applied.
HSE Strategy to reduce levels of occupational stress
The published HSE strategy is of a commitment to reducing the levels of occupational stress in the UK. The method of achieving this includes, "maintaining and enhancing the enforcement profile on work-related ill health to highlight the consequences of failure, and to hold those responsible to account". However, up until January 2021 the HSE has issued no further Improvement Notices and had not prosecuted any employer for failing to control the hazards known to cause occupational stress. The HSE database of enforcement notices includes prosecutions of employers for failing to risk assess physical hazards but none for failing to risk assess the bad management practices that are known to be the primary cause of occupational stress.
Organisations advocating action on occupational stress
The Work-stress network has as its fundamental aims:
* Campaign for the better protection of workers against work-induced stress through better health and safety law and stronger enforcement,
* Education and awareness raising
* Links with other organisations seeking to eliminate bullying, harassment and work-related stress
* Assisting groups tackling workplace stress.
See also
References
Further reading
*Barling, J., Kelloway, E. K., & Frone, M. R. (Eds.) (2005). Handbook of work stress. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
*
* Cooper, C. L. (1998)
Theories of organizational stress
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
* Cooper, C. L., Dewe, P. J. & O'Driscoll, M. P. (2001
Organizational stress: A review and critique of theory, research, and applications
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
*
*
*Pilkington, A. and others. (2000). Sudbury: HSE Books. (Contract Research Report No. 322/2000.
Baseline measurements for the evaluation of work-related stress campaign.
by
* Saxby, C. (June 2008). Barriers to Communication. ''Evansville Business Journal''. 1–2.
* Schonfeld, I.S., & Chang, C.-H. (2017). ''Occupational health psychology: Work, stress, and health''. New York: Springer Publishing Company.
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{{Authority control
Psychological stress
Occupational stress
Occupational health psychology
Industrial and organizational psychology
Workplace