preview

Impacts and Ramifications of Stress in the Workplace Essay

Best Essays

In the workplace, stress can have some strong physical and mental effects on employees. To best understand stress, it is first important to define it. Stress is defined as “a feeling of tension that occurs when a person perceives that a given situation is about to exceed one’s ability to cope and consequently could endanger one’s well being” (Hitt, Miller & Colella, 2011). Stress on the job is usually the result of people feeling inadequate and unable to perform the given duties of a position at a high level. This could be the result of not having the tools necessary to complete the work or having an outside need that is unable to be met while performing duties. Today, we’ll examine different types of stress and the effects that …show more content…

Health problems can begin to add up over time as chronic stress is experienced. Next, stress can either be positive or negative. Eustress is positive stress which can be invigorating and create drive within an individual. This kind of stress causes an individual to strive toward meeting goals. A project manager may experience eustress as critical steps on a complicated project are completed successfully. Dystress is negative stress and is the one most people think of when thinking of stress in general (Hitt, Miller & Colella, 2011). Dystress can lead to the chronic stress symptoms like depression and anxiety. Stress can be further examined by exploring the demand-control model and effort-reward model of workforce stress. The demand-control model analyzes the relationship between an individual’s workplace demands faced and control one has over meeting these demands. If the workforce demands are high, but control over meeting these demands is low, job strain is at its highest (Hitt, Miller & Colella, 2011). An example of this would be how a Best Buy associate is required to ask every customer if they would like to purchase an extended warranty regardless of whether he or she thinks a customer needs it or can afford it. The optimal result of a demand-control model

Get Access