StreSS and organizational StreSS

WHAT IS STRESS? The word Stress is derived from the Latin word "Stringi", which means, "to
be drawn tight". Stress arises when individuals perceive that they cannot adequately cope with the demands being made on them or with threats to their well-being. Or Stress occurs when the pressure is greater than the resources.

TYPES OF STRESS: There are two types of stress:

POSITIVE STRESS: Positive Stress as a positive influence, stress can help compel us to action; it can result in a new awareness and an exciting new perspective. Stress also provides the sense of urgency and alertness needed for survival when confronting threatening situations. NEGATIVE STRESS: Negative Stress As a negative influence, it can result in feelings of distrust, rejection, anger, and depression, which in turn can lead to health problems such as headaches, upset stomach, rashes, insomnia, ulcers, high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. Excessive, prolonged and unrelieved stress can have a harmful effect on mental, physical and spiritual health.

TYPES OF STRESSORS: There are two types of stressors:

1. 2. External Stressor Internal Stressor

EXTERNAL STRESSORS: It includes

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Physical Environment Social Interaction Organizational Major Life Events Daily Stresses

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT: Physical environment includes: 1. Noise

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2. 3. 4.

Bright Lights Heat Lack of Facilities

SOCIAL INTERACTION: Social interaction includes: 1. 2. 3. 4. Rudeness Bossiness Aggressiveness Bullying

ORGANISATIONAL: Organizational contains: 1. 2. Rules and Regulations Deadlines

MAJOR LIFE EVENTS: Major Life Events comprises: 1. 2. 3. 4. Birth Death Lost job Promotion Marital status change

DAILY HASSLES: Daily Hassles includes: 1. 2. Traveling Mechanical breakdowns

INTERNAL STRESSORS: Internal Stressors includes:

1. 2. 3. Lifestyle choices Negative self talk Mind traps
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4.

Personality traits

LIFESTYLE CHOICES: Lifestyle choices contain: 1. 2. 3. Caffeine Lack of sleep Overloaded schedule

NEGATIVE SELF - TALK: Negative Self Talk examples are: 1. 2. 3. 4. Pessimistic Thinking Self-criticism Over analyzing

MIND TRAPS: Mind Traps includes: 1. 2. 3. 4. Unrealistic expectations Taking things personally Thinking Exaggeration Rigid thinking

PERSONALITY TRAITS: A Personality trait includes: 1. 2. Perfectionists Workaholics

CAUSES OF STRESS: There are many causes of stress. It can be divided into three parts:
1. 2. 3. Causes of stress at Home Causes of stress at Work Other causes of stress

Causes of Stress at Home: It may include:

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Death of spouse, family, near relative or friend. Injury or illness of any family member. Marriage of self or son or daughter or brother or sister. Separation or divorce from partner. Pregnancy or birth of a new baby. Children's behavior or disobedience. Children's educational performance. Hyperactive children. Sexual molestation. Argument or heated conversations with spouse, family members or friends or neighbors. Not sufficient money to meet out daily expenses or unexpected expenditure. Not sufficient money to raise your standard of living. Loss of money in burglary, pick-pocketed or share market. Moving house. Change of place or change of city or change of country.

Causes of Stress at Work: It contains: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. To meet out the demands of the job. Your relationship with colleagues. To control staff under you. To train your staff and take work from them. Support you receive from your boss, colleagues and juniors. Excessive work pressure. To meet out deadlines. To give new results. To produce new publications if you are in research area. Working overtime and on holidays. New work hours. Promotion or you have not been promoted or your junior has superseded you. Argument or heated conversations with co-workers or boss. Change of job. Work against will. Harassment. Sexual molestation.

Other Causes of Stress: It contains: 1. 2. 3. 4. Fear, intermittent or continuous. Threats: physical threats, social threats, financial threat, other threats. Uncertainty. Lack of sleep.
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5. 6.

Somebody misunderstands you. Setback to your position in society.

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF STRESS:

According to Seyle, there are three stages related to the stressful situations: Alarm stage: is the first response when we experience some stressful situation. For example: if we are about to be hit by a car The stage of resistance: Occurs after the alarm stage. This is the stage when steroids are produced. The body at this point seems to be recovering, but if the stressor is not eliminated, this appearance is only illusory. Stage of exhaustion: At this stage body is dealing with the last round of defenses. If the stressor remains or returns too frequently, that could lead to the death of the organism.

MODELS OF STRESS: Model is defined as a systematic organization of knowledge on some

topic. There are two kinds of models which are explained below: The Process Model of Task Performance: McGrath developed this model which explains the stress related task performance and it is based on the premise that task performance is a function of actual task ability and difficulty, and perceived stress. In such cases the person engages in 3 processes: 7. 8. 9. Decision Process: To decide how to cope with the stressor. Performance Process: Selected behaviors are evaluated on quality, quantity, and speed. Outcome Process: Indicates whether the behaviors produced the desired outcomes. This process is very important since it feeds back into the original situation and may influence future situations too.

The Integrative Transactional Process Model of Stress: Schuler was the name of the person who came up with this project. He explained each word that the title contains: 10. 11. 12. Integrative: The model was developed by considering the diverse areas of research. Transactional: The relationships in the model are reciprocal, or both a cause and effect of each other. Process: The relationships implied by this model occur overtime and across stressors.
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Measures of Stress: Measuring stress is a difficult thing to do because researchers cannot place workers under stressful situations and study their responses (for ethical reasons). Most studies are nonexperimental field studies. There are three types of measures which are used to collect data on job-related stress: Self-report: It includes questionnaires, surveys, and interviews. They require people to report the stress they experience, the nature of stressors, the stress responses, and outcomes. The most commonly used method. Behavioral measures: It measures the actual behavior such as job-related absences, number of accidents at work, number of cigarettes smoked per day. These measures are usually less biased compared to self-report. Physiological measures: It includes any index of nervous system activation (sweating, breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension) and biochemical measures of stress.

THE NATURE OF JOB-RELATED STRESS:

Job or occupation: the research has shown that there are occupational differences when it comes to stress. Some certain occupations are much more stressful than some other ones. Laborers, secretaries, lab technicians, first-line supervisors, managers, waitresses or waiters, and machine operators belong to the most stressful occupations Environmental stressors: Some occupations require activities in traditional industrial environments such as factories. In such cases workers (blue-collars) are exposed to very difficult environmental conditions (high temperatures and noise) and repetitive activities which lead to feelings of dullness and flatness. Noise: It has many negative effects on workers. The most severe one is permanent hearing loss. It can also affect performance. Temperature: Extreme temperature conditions can be very stressful. Performance is declined under hot temperatures during physical tasks. Cold exposure can be a problem too. Repetition: Repetitive and routinized tasks are associated with monotony and boredom, negative attitudes toward work, etc. machine-paced jobs are especially stressful and cause depression, job dissatisfaction and anxiety apart from stress. This happens because workers have no control over work.

Organizational stressors: White-collar stressors are usually related to the workers role in
the organization. The most common organizational stressors are failure in role-sending and role-taking. The role-based stressors most frequently studies are: Role conflict: Occurs when role demands are in conflict. There are three types of role conflict: 1. Intra sender conflict: Occurs when one person communicates a mixed or conflicting message (for example: Increase productivity but cut back overtime) 2. Inters sender conflict: Two or more people send conflicting messages ( for example: When a worker has more than one supervisor, satisfying one of them, means neglecting the other/s) 3. Inter role conflict: Two or more roles conflict for one person ( for example: A woman may find her roles as parent, worker, wife, and student conflict) Role ambiguity: It results when role demands are unclear or unknown; there is inadequate or confusing information about how to perform the task; or ambiguity about how you will be evaluated in your role For Example: When we dont know how the professor is going to determine our course grade, we experience evaluation ambiguity Interpersonal problems with coworkers: It is another work role stressor. This is more common for managers, whose role includes responsibility. The risk of failure results in personal and professional trauma. Problems with coworkers usually have a negative impact on the communication process which leads to role ambiguity and low job satisfaction. Nonworking Stressors: Many factors outside of work can influence the effectiveness at work. Personal problems have a great impact on our performance. There are three general perspectives which try to explain the relationship of job and life satisfaction: Spillover: Problems outside of work spill over into work life. For Example: personal problems, financial problems. Compensation: One environment compensates for deficiencies in the other. For Example: A man who has marital problems immerses himself in projects at work. Independence: Problems in one environment do not affect the other.

EFFECT /OUTCOMES OF STRESS (STRAINS): There are many effects of stress. We are
discussing three types of effect below: Health effect: Researchers have tried to explain the relationship between stress and health problems. They concluded that stressful life events actually cause illnesses. Everyday stressors or daily hassles such as misplacing car keys and concerns about dieting have a strong relationship with health problems too, maybe even a stronger effect than stressful events.

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Organizational effects: It can be attitudinal or behavioral.

1. Attitudinal effects include job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job involvement, propensity to leave the organization, and job-related tension or anxiety. Research shows that the relationship among stress and attitudes is complex. The relationship that is mostly supported by research is greater role conflict and ambiguity lead to increased job tension, which lowers job satisfaction. As for behavioral effects, the research shows that the relationship between job-related stressors and behavioral outcomes are weak. For example, the relationship between role ambiguity and performance is weak, especially for objective performance measures such as quantity of output.

2.

Burnout: It is a type of job-related stress outcome that has both behavioral and attitudinal components. It often refers to frustration, exhaustion, and cynicism experienced by human service professionals (policemen, social workers, and teachers). The extreme demands that these workers face are very devastating for them. There are three types of responses that define burnout: 1. 2. 3. Emotional exhaustion Depersonalization ( the act of putting psychological distance between the individual and others) Decreased personal accomplishment (wasted efforts)

HOW TO OVERCOME: We can overcome stress by the following ways: Bring the situation out into the open. Acknowledge and accept all these feelings as healthy expressions of care for others and for oneself. Compassion and non-judgment are the beginning of a "healing process" that can restore the lost emotional flexibility. Find out if there is some practical action that needs to be put into practice in order to end the grief process and move on. Sometimes, writing letters (even if they are never sent) or roleplaying conversations can bring open issues to an end for good. Explain the underlying principle for what happened. What were the challenges the company faced? What was the justification for choosing the actions taken? lt is necessary to re-establish a sense of loyalty and mutual commitment as a foundation for moving forward. It will be impossible to restore it if the employees remaining believe that the company's actions were
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arbitrary or unfair.

Start a conversation about the future. What are the prospects? Will there be more downsizing episodes? What are the steps required to overcome the crisis? Develop a very concrete plan of action and encourage the responsibility to materialize it. Make sure people have a renewed sense of purpose. Keep an open route to deal with emotional issues. The "organizational healing" is a process, not an event. Although it is critical to get started, it is even more important to maintain an ongoing dialogue about typical "untouchable" issues.

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