Job stress

• Stressor


  An environmental event that is perceived by an individual to be threatening
• Worker stress


  The physiological and/or psychological reactions to events that are perceived to be threatening or taxing
• Types of stress


  • Positive stress (eustress) - choosing between options
  • Negative stress (distress) - can cause stress-related illness and affect absenteeism, turnover, and work performance
• Situational stress


  Stress arising from certain conditions that exist in the work environment or in the worker's personal life
• Work task stressors


  Stressors that are part of the actual work tasks
• Work overload is widely believed to be one of the greatest sources of worker stress
• Negative stress (or distress) can cause stress-related illness and can affect absenteeism, turnover, and work performance
• Work overload


  • Job requires excessive speed output/concentration
  • Widely believed to be one of the greatest sources of work stress
• Underutilization


  • Having too little to do
  • May also occur when workers feel that the job does not use their work-related knowledge, skills, or abilities or when jobs are boring and monotonous
  • A source of stress resulting from workers feeling that their knowledge, skills, or energy are not being fully used
• Work role stressors


  • What is your role in that particular organization?
  • They don't listen to your suggestions
• Job ambiguity


  • Occurs when aspects of a job, such as tasks and requirements, are not clearly outlined
  • A source of stress resulting from a lack of clearly defined jobs and/or work tasks
• Lack of control

  • A feeling of having little input or effect on the job and/or work environment; typically results in stress
  • Particularly common in lower-level jobs or in highly structured organization
• Physical work conditions


  • Jobs that must be performed under extreme temperatures, loud and distracting noise, or poor lighting or ventilation can be quite stressful
  • Dangerous jobs that place workers at risk of loss of health, life, or limb are an additional source of work stress
• Interpersonal stress


  • Stress arising from difficulties with others in the workplace
  • Difficulties dealing with co-workers
  • Bullying (workplace bullying) always target for jokes/bullying
• Emotional labor


  • Demands regulating emotions in workplace
  • Emotional instability (stress work/home)
• Harassment


  Is a criminal offense
• Organizational change


  Some common change situations that lead to worker stress include company reorganizations, mergers of one company with another or acquisitions of one organization by another, changes in work systems and work technology, changes in company policy, and managerial or personnel changes
• Work-family conflict


  • Cumulative stress that results from duties of work and family roles
  • Can't balance work and family
  • Work family conflict (working mothers)
• Type A behavior pattern


  A personality characterized by excessive drive, competitiveness, impatience, and hostility that has been linked to greater incidence of coronary heart disease
• Susceptibility to stress vs. hardiness


  • Grace under pressure- kayang manhandle anumang stress
  • Hardiness the notion that some people may be more resistant to the health-damaging effects of stress
  • Hardy personality types are resistant to the harmful effects of stress because of their style of dealing with stressful events
  • Hardy types view stressful situations as a challenge and derive meaning from these challenging experiences
• Self-efficacy

  • Sense of self-efficacy can have positive effects in reducing stress in the workplace
  • Kahit gaano katas self-efficacy if nasa paligid not support can become frustrating
  • More performer more work
  • Work itself is not usually the source of stress but the environment
• Measurement of worker stress

  • Physiological measures of stress (blood pressure monitoring, ECGs for heart rate, blood tests for stress-linked hormones and cholesterol)
  • Self-report assessments of stress
  • Reports on organizational conditions
  • Self-report measures of psychological/physical stress
• Stress Diagnostic Survey (SDS), the Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI), and the Job Stress Survey


  JSS is a 30-item instrument that measures the severity and frequency with which workers experience certain stressful working conditions
• Social Readjustment Rating Scale


  A checklist where individuals total the numerical "stress severity" scores associated with significant life events experienced in the past year
• Person-Environment Fit (P-E Fit)


  Refers to the match between a worker's abilities, needs, and values, and organizational demands, rewards, and values
• Research suggests that persons with high personal stress indexes perform more poorly, have higher absenteeism, and change jobs more frequently
• Stress-related illnesses


  Include ulcers, colitis, high blood pressure, heart disease, and migraine headaches
• Job burnout


  • A syndrome resulting from prolonged exposure to work stress that leads to withdrawal from the organization
  • Different from stress (physical) (anxiety)
  • Burnout (psychological) (lead to depression, suicide)
• Phases of burnout


  • Emotional exhaustion (caused by excessive demands placed on the worker)
  • Depersonalization (or the development of a cynical, insensitive attitude toward people (other workers or customers) in the work site)
  • Feelings of low personal accomplishment (feel a sense of frustration and helplessness, begin to believe that their work efforts fail to produce the desired results, and they may quit trying)
• Job burnout is high in human service professions that involve helping others, such as health care providers (physicians, nurses, counselors), teachers, social workers, and police officers
• Individual coping strategies


  Behavioral or cognitive efforts made in an attempt to manage internal demands and conflicts that have exceeded an individual's usual coping resources
• Organizational coping strategies


  Techniques that organizations can use to reduce stress for all or most employees
• Organizational coping strategies


  • Improving person-job fit and employee training and orientation
  • Increase employees' sense of control
  • Eliminating punitive management
  • Removing hazardous work conditions
  • Providing a supportive work environment
  • Improving organizational communication
• Counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs)


  Deviant, negative behaviors that are harmful to an organization and its workers (violence, hostility)