Organizational Change and Stress Management

In today’s world Stress has become a ubiquitous word. It doesn’t matter if you are working in a highly competitive environment like at Wall Street or in a quiet neighbourhood like in country side or in any tier 2 or tier 3 cities; some amount of stress is inevitable. Stress is a highly serious problem in today world having repercussions on the physical and mental health of individuals. This negative effect can be disastrous for the organizations also. Due to stress the wellbeing of the employee falls and as a result organization itself becomes unwell. The organization sustainability falls as its productivity reduces. Stress can originate from many sources, like relationship problems, obligations and promises to family, friends

Introduction Stress affects millions of people. One of the most common forms of stress is that related to our careers and the workplace. In today 's economic difficulty, work related stress is even more pronounced than ever before. Everyone who has ever held a job has, felt the pressure of work-related stress. Any job can have stressful elements, even if you love what you do. According to the American Psychological Association 's (APA) annual Stress in America Survey. Only 37 percent of Americans surveyed said they were doing

Stress can be defined as an interaction between people and any kind of demand within their environment. A stressor can be an event or an object which is harmful for an individual. Stress can happen when the demand outweighs a human's ability to deal. Factors that may cause job stress include long work hours, job insecurity, conflict among workers and supervisors, shift work, or hazards. Job stress can cause low productivity, low employee morale, high turnover, increased call ins, sickness and negative results. Aspects that need to be considered when diagnosing job stress include age, sex, race, income, education, marital status and personality.

There are numerous challenges that organizations are faced with in order for them to survive and grow. These challenges are mainly faced by people who are tasked with making decisions on a daily basis within the organizations because a majority of the challenges are human based. The employees working in an organization are likely to suffer from occupational stress depending on their work. Occupational stress comes along when an employee is faced with demands within the workplace, and they are not able to complete or carry out these demands. The failure to complete the demands placed upon them would cause the employee mental and physical strain as their body would have a physiological reaction. According to research there are various factors that contribute to stress in the workplace. These factors include isolation, extensive working hours, negative workloads, unhealthy working environments, harassment, bullying by management, and lack of motivation or advancement opportunities. The factors mentioned are not exhaustive as there might be other causes to occupational stress depending on the individual or employees.

How each individual chooses to relieve their level of stress is a purely personal matter. Stress is reported to cost employers production and money. Certain levels of stress are beneficial to society and individuals, this allows for positive growth; although long term exposure to stress can cause ill-effects to one’s well-being. Work place stress, otherwise known as occupational stress is said by the United Nations’ International Labor Organization to be a global occurrence. It is estimated that occupational stress causes US employers a loss of up to $200 billion a year. This includes low productivity, workers’

In this paper I will discuss stress and the workplace stress survey from the American Institute of Stress and if left untreated, how it will negatively affect the workforce. I will explain the results of my survey scores and why I believe they are positive and negative. Additionally, I will describe personal examples of the stressors that are always at work and how to identify and overcome them before they cause irreparable damage.

“Commonly cited causes of work stress include low salaries (46 percent), lack of opportunities for growth or advancement (41 percent), too heavy a workload (41 percent), long hours (37 percent) and unclear job expectations (35 percent),” (APA, March 8, 2012). These job stressed transmit into lives lived outside of work too. When managers are taking all of these stresses home it can be impossible to actually de-stress from work while away. When I surveyed the managers 100% reported that they feel stressed outside of work. 75% rated this question a 5, they are stressed to the highest degree. Although stress outside of work can relate to many non-work problems. The next question asked to survey “I handle stress well.” the ratings were not ones to match with having stress outside of work also.

Change will always produce stress, especially when it’s not well managed. As you discussed in your thread, a change is affected by external and internal factors. Resistant to change is escribed by Kinicki & Fugate (2016) as any thought, emotion, or behavior that does not align with real or potential change to existing routines (p.574). As you mentioned, when an organization expands there are many changes to consider. As humans, we resist change and change will be easily managed when the idea of change itself can be “sold” to the affected employees. As you mentioned Lewin’s change model teaches us how the process of change will progress. According to your thread, technology has been one of the factors in the change in the organization which

Any work environment can have stressful aspects that can negatively affect the employees’ performance and may lead to burnout. Oftentimes when employees are stressed or burnout their commitment at the job may begin to weaken and they may lose satisfaction. Many organizations have recognized that workers burnout is the result of aggravated chronic work stressors and embodied by enervation and inefficacy. This author will discuss the impact of stress and worker burnout on organizations. Moreover, this author will consider the implication of stress and worker burnout on the employee, as well as the short- and long-term productivity of a business.

Stressors have been an important aspect of our class journals each week through the semester. Which leads to the question of where do these stressors come from and why? Stressors are a source of strain that has both an objective and subjective view. Objectively, in a work setting it is based on how much you put into the work and the number of hours you are completing. Whereas subjectively, involves more of the perception of the work and how the work is being done. Strain is the response to these stressors, which include behavioral, physical and psychological aspects. Behavioral strain has an impact on a person’s ability to perform in the work place and how their feelings have an impact on the quality of the performance. A physical response is when something is concretely happening to you and you can feel the strain and pressure from the outcome. The third response is almost a final point of how a person feels which is psychological. They are burned out mentally and result in anxiety and

According to Cavanaugh, Boswell, Roehling, and Boudreau (2000), organizational stress is an emotional feeling that results from external demands placed on an employee in a workplace setting. Therefore, it is critical that aspects in an organizational setting, which result in feelings of stress, are properly addressed (Cropanzano, Howes, Grandey & Toth, 1997). According to Narayanan, Menon, and Spector (1999), the traditional manner in which the construct of organizational stress is assessed, is via indirect reports in the form of surveys and questionnaires. However, traditional methods of assessment in the form of surveys and questionnaires, can often miss valuable information regarding which environmental variables are truly controlling the behavior (Kushwaha, 2014). Therefore, a behavioral analytic solution is needed on order to properly assess the broad construct of workplace stress.

Work life is becoming more demanding and unpredictable, which is why more people are dealing with stress, with 53% of Australian employees feeling under pressure a significant amount of the time. Businesses need to place systems to help employees cope and manage stress. Managers should be aiming to create an environment from being stressful to challenging and rewarding. Stress is defined as an “adaptive response to a situation that is perceived as challenging or threatening to a person’s wellbeing” (McShane, Olekalns and Travaglione, 2013), it is a condition that effects humans both physiologically and psychologically. The effects and the causes of stress can vary greatly from person to person; along with how they handle the pressures amounted

If the employee has a high level of stress at work it has a tendency to have a low level of job performance, employee were more inclined to leave their job, and were less loyal to the organization they worked for. Good economic health of an organization depends on the control and prevention of role stress at work (Anton, 2009; .(Özbağa, Çekmecelioğlu, & Ceyhun, 2014).). Environmental stress is inevitably triggers anger or aggression. Working with people who are prone to anger-aggression may be difficult and can provoke anxiety and even hostility in staff (Levey & Howells, 1990).When the employee experience some conflict at workplace their job performance may suffers. Organization that supports the employees can decreases the level of stress and increases the level of job performance ( Özbağa, Çekmecelioğlu, & Ceyhun,

Stressors can be divided into those that arise from within an individual (internal), and those that are attributable to the environment (external). Internal conflicts, non-specific fears, fears of inadequacy, and guilt feelings are examples of stressors that do not depend on the environment. Internal sources of stress can arise from an individual 's perceptions of an environmental threat, even if no such danger actually exists. Environmental stressors are external conditions beyond an individual 's control. Bhagat (1983) has reported that work performance can be seriously impaired by external stressors. There are many aspects of organizational life that can become external stressors. These include issues of structure, management 's use of authority, monotony, a lack of opportunity for advancement, excessive responsibilities, ambiguous demands, value conflicts, and unrealistic workloads. A person 's non-working life (e.g., family, friends, health, and financial situations) can also contain stressors that negatively impact job performance. This can be summarized as follows.

Stress is a common issue that faces every human being in different times. Stress can be caused by many factors, but one of the main reasons is work which is called occupational stress or work-related stress. Job stress does not only affect the employees’ performance within an organization, but also it affects their general health. Stress has become a challenge for employers now because high level stress results in low productivity, increased absenteeism and other problems like alcoholism, drug abuse and hypertension (Ahmad, Mohamed. 2017). It became a major problem for employers especially in developing countries where they don’t realize the importance of work-life balance and the impact of stress on the productivity level and the job