Stress

What is stress?

Stress occurs in whole day, not only in working hours. 

According to Stone, Raymond (2008), “Stress has been described as the rate of wear and tear on the body caused by living. It is a general term for pressures and problems people experience as they go through life. In itself, stress is neither good nor bad. In fact, some degree of stress is normal and necessary for day-to-day survival. Even when people are relaxed there is a minimal amount of stress present. Without stress, energy, and motivation would be absent. Stress is unavoidable in human existence.”

“Stressors are the things that cause stress. They are the stimuli or circumstances that bring about a change in people’s psychological and physiological equilibrium. Whether the stressors are positive or negative, the initial physiology reactions are much the same. Rapid heartbeat, increase blood pressure, dryness in the mouth and quickened breathing are some of the dominant reactions.” (Stone, 2008)

Type of Stressors

Stress can killed a person

The stressor includes work overload and underload, role conflict and role ambiguity, bad bosses, and workaholism. 

Work overload is to describe the common condition of overwork. 

There are two types of work overload: 

1. Quantitative overload 

2. Qualitative overload. 

It is stress when we cannot handle the job task.

Quantitative overload is employee having too much of work to do in the time available. It is an obvious source of stress and linked to a chronic disease such as coronary heart disease. 

Qualitative overload involves the work that is too difficult. Having inadequately ability to perform a job is stressful. Even though the employees have a considerable ability, it is also finding them in some situation which they cannot cope with the job’s demand. 

Work underload is the employees having the work that are too simple or insufficient to fill a worker’s time or challenge an employee’s abilities. It is also stressful. Work underload will increase boredom and monotony and reduced job satisfaction. 

An employee’s role in the organization can be a source of stress. 

Role ambiguity arises when the scope and responsibilities of a job are unstructured defined. The employees do not know what to do and what is expected. Most of the new employees are facing this problem due to the unclear job description. An adequate orientation programs for mew employees can reduce the role ambiguity. There are three components of role ambiguity that found by I-O psychologist: performance criteria ambiguity which is irresolute about the standards used to evaluate an employee’s job performance, work method ambiguity which is uncertainty about the procedures appropriate to the successful performance of the job, and scheduling ambiguity is the uncertainty about the timing of the job.

Role conflict arises when a discord occurs in job requirement or between the job’s demands and the values or expectations between the employees. For example, a supervisor may ask the subordinates to involve the decision making but the subordinates’ suggestion may not increase the productivity.

A poor leadership behavior can lead to stress. For example, supervisors or managers fail to support their subordinates or refuse their subordinates' decision without any reason or explanation. When the subordinates cannot get any approves from their superiors, they feel helpless, hopeless, and useless during the work.

People who are addicted to their work are descripted as workaholics. Not all the employees are described as workaholics but it is for those who are anxious and insecure. Workaholics are happy, well-adjusted people who enjoy their work. These kinds of people seldom take vacations because they feel it is unnecessary. But they may become a source of stress to other due to their extreme sense of commitment.

For those who are workaholic would not rest for a moment.

Written by Leow Bee Lian