Stress and conflicts at work places

Introduction

Work places have been in the recent past the places where a number of conflicts takes place. The competitions and pressure results into conflicts at work places leading to a stressful life that sometimes makes life unbearable and unappealing. When an individual gets a job, expectations are to have a joyous life but the resultant outcome is never celebrated. For instance, work places in most cases have people from various background and with different societal upbringing, with this the inability to relate in a holistic and cordial manner could be a norm if not restrained (Arnold, et al, 2005). Stress, for instance, is a resultant negative outcome at workplaces. On the same case it has resultant into various workplace related conflicts. Stress is affirmed to be any reaction undergone by the body that causes physical, emotional or psychological strain. On the same note, conflicts are disagreements that arises between two or more people, groups or organizations that results into total misunderstands among themselves. As denoted, stress at work place is a common and regular thing that majority of the people encounter. It could take two distinct scenarios, first, the stress could be induced by the individuals working with in the work place or secondly it could as well be as a result of the nature of the job at hand as some jobs are generally stressful in nature. Conflicts in most cases arise from the competitions at work place and any other witch haunting that tends to make it difficult to deliver. The stress if not well managed may lead to detrimental effects which some may not be reversible.

Main body

Individually, stress can result into headaches, anxiety, muscle pain and tension, restlessness, angry outbursts, lack of focus, drug and substance abuse and misuse, change in sex drive and sleep problems. All these translates to poor workmanship at work. Stress may result into psychological and physiological effects on both employees and employers causing great effects on their health. Effects such as chronic fatigue, skin disorders, high blood pressure, heart attack, and poor performances at work may result due to tension, boredom, emotional imbalance, anxiety, and depression.

Stress coupled up with work related conflicts may as well result into high rates of absenteeism and low numbers of employee’s turnout resulting to employees failing to deliver their best thus resulting to poor performances. Due to this, it results into low productivity hence causing extreme loses for the organizations. On the other hand, a stressed employee may cause safety problems to fellow workmate especially when handling very dangerous tools or machines. On the same note, stress may make an employee to be nervous and non-cooperative in the duties assigned to. Stress is not necessarily negative but it can also be positive. A positive stress is perceived as a motivator at work places.

Factors that may lead into work stress

Work places have a key scenario that induce stress, such cases however some can be regulated and avoided. For instance, stress is commonly induced by the provision of tight deadlines at work that requires employee to deliver within a shorter period. Similarly, organizations may involve in some unpleasing habits that forces employees to change their normal duties which in turn results to the employee stress. In accordance to this, when the security of the job is not clearly defined, employees in most cases tend to experience stress because they are not sure of when they might be laid off at work. Regardless of this, some employers get used to exploiting the employees by making them work for longer hours past the normal working hours (Dewe, Cox, and Ferguson, 1993). In addition to this, some changes within the organization may result into stress because an employee may experience a shift into a different department that he is not familiar with and at the same time being expected to produce the desired results by the manager without undergoing any skilful training pertaining the allocated job. Such cases not only arise to stress but also to conflicts either among the employees or between the employee and the employer.

Intervention for stress

Stress management is very a useful tool for reducing the risks of mental health problems arising from high level of stress. Several methods of intervention need to be put in place to assist in regulating the amount of stress at workplaces. Such methods may include, the primary type which are focused at dealing with the affecting issues just at the source, preventing the problem that is resulting to the stress from continuing to happen and having adverse effect on employee’s health. The secondary type focuses on helping the employee to deal with situations that leads to stress occurrence but they do not address the main cause of the stress. Tertiary type which is aimed at improving the wellbeing of the employees whose work has resulted to their health issues and if they are absent from work, it therefore facilitates their return to work (Dewe, Cox, and Ferguson, 1993). Stressed employees need to be assertive and have clear and effective communication in case of any problem. One is required to be bold enough and speak out their minds based on what they are going through and ask what they want as this will fully express their feelings.

Additionally, there is need to effectively manage time in a way that planning for activities to undertake at a particular time helps to work according to the set limits and expectations. Create boundaries such that they should set time and space for themselves in a way that employees should only work during work hours and get extra time for relation and body rest. Thinking of positive events and experiences helps ease the level of stress in the body. Adhering to proper diet and physical exercise that helps in reducing the level of anxiety in the body. Meditation and physical relaxation such as breathing and physical activities like going for swimming, gyms and yoga exercise helps ease the level of stress through body relaxation. Finally, on the same note, the employer should be ready to support the employees in all matters pertaining their mental and social life.

Policies used by organization to reduce stress

Work place stress is very expensive as it has a very great negative impact on the organization performance and productivity. All organizations need to come up with polices that will enable the ineffectiveness of stress. Keeping workload suitable for employees per their abilities and available resources that assists in balancing their work load and introducing work shifts that helps in ensuring that employees have enough time to relax before their shift for work.

Providing flexible time and encouraging remote work helps to regulate the level of stress among the employees as in most cases working from home at times helps reduce the stress level as some staffs especially those who are advanced in age need to be given opportunity to work from home because this strategy helps to reduce some work pressure and may provide them with a good environment to work and relax a little before embarking on the assigned work. Similarly, providing training opportunities, inductions and stress awareness to the employees that may help in their mind relation as they will be well equipped with skills and knowledge of how to handle the level of stress in case of their occurrence.

Additionally, organizations need to make wellness and fit exercises part of workplace to help them promote healthy living habits at work and introduce gym membership that assists employees to exercise and facilitate a fresh mind for working. Workplaces that mind the wellbeing of their employees should at least promote free check-ups and encourage breaks for their staffs. In respect to this, employers should encourage team environment to help the employees spend time each other in order to support and learn from each other. Through this strategy the employee’s relations will be improved among and team work will be promoted among themselves. The organizations should at least create employee friendly environment that gives each employee the right to comfortably express their views to anyone. They should not be forced to do what they don’t want and what they perceive as being wrong through threats of being fired. Organizations should create programs that helps in relieving stress for the employees. Furthermore, creating a culture of cooperation and support to employees helps in improving the organizations progress. Through provision of proper training, employees will be able to know how to handle the stress in a way that will not impact the productivity of the institution negatively. Lastly employers should avoid unnecessary interruptions like persistence noise and disagreements as the re the major sources of work stress.

The prevention of workplace stress is effective when combined forces of both organization and individual stress management is used. A good organization or company or employer will at least address the issue pertaining stress through: promoting leave, breaks and rests, encouraging exercises and meditation inside and outside work and working hours, ensuring that workload is in line with workers abilities and resources available, provide opportunities for workers to use their respective skills and experiences, allow workers to participate in decision making that affects their individuals roles, encourage open communication for employees to speak out their feelings and challenges, creating family friendly policies to encourage work life balance among the staff and providing trainings for workplaces stress management (Ordóñez, Schweitzer, Galinsky, and Bazerman, 2009).

On the same note personal strategies for stress management need to be embraced. Setting realistic deadlines which can easily be achieved. Taking holiday leaves that will at least give one time to relax from work activities, developing a healthy work life balance through healthy eating and participating in physical exercises, leaving work at work and avoiding issues about work while at home, establishing open and professional communication that helps one to communicate what they are facing in real life similarly, employees should not put up with any form of discrimination of any kind.

On the other hand, conflicts at work place are common and cannot be avoided when employees of different origins and work styles are brought together for same business purpose. Conflicts at work must be well resolved because racial inequalities, tribalism and political deference’s has greatly resulted to its rise in work places. Conflicts can be expressed in form of physical abuses, bullying, and insults. It results in decreased productivity due to poor performance, absenteeism, low turnover, termination and disruptions at work. However, conflicts result from high job expectations, resistance to change, unfavourable work environment, personal differences and poor communication among the staff both junior and the management.

Conclusion

Productivity at work place is the most expected outcome, however the stress and conflicts are inevitable as they depict the human nature. Kant in his theory of deontology, denotes that any action is good if it elicits the needed joy. But this should be the case only if the action is productive. Stress and conflicts are common at work and the need to have them solved should be priority. To counter this, organizations need to emphasize on organizations goals and effectiveness that helps in preventing goal conflict as employees are likely to see wider future and decide to work together towards achieving set priorities. Providing stable and well-structured task to every employee to help minimize chances of conflicts. Facilitating communication among employees themselves to encourage mutual understanding among themselves, avoiding win lose situations in a way that in case of scarcity in organization resources then it is effective for management to seek different form of resource sharing in order to facilitate the effectiveness of the organization (Haar, et al, 2014). It should go handy in establishing conflict management training. That tends to instil positive skills and knowledge to employees and help them with best strategies to resolve their differences and work together as a team. Developing strong employee relations should be quickly and equitably. An organization whose employees have good relations is more likely to grow faster and lastly ensure careful hiring of staff.in a way that background check pertaining communication skills should be considered before hiring the employee during an interview session.

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References

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