JOB STRESS AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Job Stress and Performance Management

Job Stress and Performance Management

Introduction

The topic of stress at job has received much attention, mainly because it has important consequences for both individuals and organisations. Before proceeding to discuss findings in this area it is important to define stress and relevant concepts. A stressor is an external source or cause of a process that may give rise to stress. Stress is the consequences of the stressor, which manifest in the impairment of either psychological or physiological wellbeing. Coping is the attempt to manage demands presented by the stressor so as to minimise the detrimental outcome in terms of stress. Discussion will focus on what is stress and how it has been conceptualised, costs of stress to individuals and organisations, models of stress at job and stress interventions.

Discussion

Stress is a contributory factor to serious ailments that can affect individuals such as coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, migraine, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes. Today in the United Kingdom one person every 3 to 4 minutes die from coronary heart disease. Almost half of all Americans die of cardiovascular disease. Physical effects of stress on an individual include tiredness, lack of appetite, constipation or diarrhoea, insomnia, cramps, nausea and impotency. Behavioural effects include constant irritability with people, lack of interest in life, difficulties in concentrating, alcohol abuse and family breakdown. Psychological consequences of stress include mental illness, anxiety and depression.

Costs of stress to organisations include reduced job satisfaction, increased turnover and too much stress results in decreased performance. Absenteeism is one of the most obvious costs of stress to employers. By the 1970s it was recognised that time lost from job due to stress-related illnesses cost the United Kingdom far more than losses due to job stoppages and strikes. In 1984-5 16% of the days lost from job were due to mental health causes.

It is estimated that more than $700 million is spent by employers to replace the 200 000 men aged 45-65 who die or are incapacitated by coronary heart disease every year. Organisations also have to pay directly for stress-related illnesses through compensation claims and employee health care costs. In 1986 top management at Xerox estimated that the cost of losing one executive to a stress-related illness was $600 000.

Categories of Job Stress

It can therefore easily be seen why researchers are interested in stress at job and how it can be managed to relieve these consequences. There are several models of stress at job. Cooper (1986) provides a good framejob for stress at job from which much research has been generated, although it can't really be called a model as it is more descriptive. He identifies the sources of stress at job which feed into individual characteristics. This may result in symptoms of occupational ill health (both individual and organisational symptoms) which can lead to disease. A criticism of the model is that a coping mechanism could be included after individual characteristics and before occasional ill health to take into ...