Stress is defined as 'a state of mental of emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances' (Oxford Dictionary, online). Stress at work is a worldwide problem nowadays which cause employees' mental and physical illnesses. A country's loss of GNP is even partially due to people's stress (Cooper, 1998). Stress has become the the major concern of the twentieth century and with the development of economic globalisation, the situation might be getting worse. For these reasons, understanding the causes of stress in workplaces is becoming more and more important. This essay will consider two causes of stress for people at work and suggest how to solve the problem caused by these reasons. The essay aims to illustrate that the most common cause of stress is unhealthy relationships at work, and the best solution is understanding and improving emotional intelligence.
One of the major factors which contributes towards stress is working overload. Online statistic shows that over 61% workers claim that heavy workload is having a negative impact on their daily lives. Cooper, Arnold and Robertson(1998) have described two forms of working overload. Quantitative overload explains the situation that workers have too much work to finish. This type of overload usually links to long working hours, which causes serious physical health problems such as heart and circulation disease, obesity, what's more, increase the possibility of cigarette smoking and even death rate. On the other hand, qualitative overload refers to cases when employees don't have enough knowledge, skills or ability to accomplish their work. This fact may be attributable to the trend of increasingly rapid updates of new knowledge and techniques. Managing to keep abreast of the latest information in time may ease the stress to some extent.
A most effective way solution to deal with stress caused by overwork is to set time and task management plan. As Weiss (2012) suggests,here are plenty of small steps that help people to set a scientific plan. For instance, leaving home 10 to 15 minutes earlier to go to work can reduce a large extent of stress comparing to starting a day in a rush. A balanced schedule can also help workers to find a balance between work and family. Schedules should be made according to the priority of one's work tasks and then accomplish the tasks in the same order. Moreover, one should also break the tasks into smaller steps instead of finish the tasks as a whole at one time. Lastly, delegate the work to somebody else when others are capable of finishing the job. Letting go of the intention to control and finish the work all by oneself will reduce unnecessary stress. There are also other methods such as meditation, exercises that reduce job stress. Nevertheless, those solutions can only largely alleviate the negative physical symptoms caused by overwork rather than tackle the problem radically. In contrast, time and task management plan can help employees to form a more efficient working habit.
In addition to working overload, a more common factor that leads to stress for employees is relationship at work. Problems caused by stress are often result from unhealthy relationships in the workplaces. There are mainly three types of relationships, which are relationships with supervisors, relationships with subordinates and relationships with colleagues. Buck (1972) finds in his early research that when the boss was 'low on consideration', workers tended to gain more job pressure, while some other employees said that there was 'friendship, mutual trust and a certain warmth' when their superior showed enough respect and acted considerably during work. Secondly, finding the way to delegate work to subordinates and get themselves involved in the task can also lead to a certain level of stress for managers (Cooper, Arnold and Robertson,1998). Finally, stress caused by relationships with colleagues is usually arisen from the severe competition, personality conflicts and sometimes even gossip in workplaces. Since employees spend most of a day at work, bad relationships can cause a significant level of stress.
To overcome stress caused by unhealthy relationships , the most practical way is to understand and improve one's emotional intelligence. The definition of emotional intelligence is a kind of social intelligence that concerns the ability of understanding not only one's own but also others' emotions and feelings, as well as using this ability to control one's daily activities (Littlejohn, 2012). Therefore, emotional intelligence is composed of four parts. Firstly, the ability to control one's emotions and actions, which is known as self-management. This helps employees to suit themselves to any working environment. Secondly is self-awareness, which means understanding one's own emotions and the specific symptoms those emotions may reflect. Another one is social-awareness. Similar to self-awareness, social-awareness indicates the capability of recognising other people's emotional expression. Lastly, relationship management refers to being able to manage other people's connections and conflicts. This is usually a required quality of a manager or superior. The simplest skill to improve employee's emotional intelligence is to form a habit to treat competitions with humour. With a more relaxed attitude, tasks can be accomplished with far less stress. What's more, pay attention to one's own emotional impact and try to calm oneself down in time before negative emotions such as anxiety grow too strong. In addition, to resolve colleague conflicts in a more friendly way. By doing this, employees can build up the trust between each other more easily. Last but not least, to keep noticing nonverbal cues since they make up 95% to 98% of people's communication process. It plays even a more important role than verbal languages (Weiss, 2012).There are also other ways to improve relationships at work such as regular outdoor training programme which is now popular in many big corporations. However, this method is more conditional and takes more effort to make it happen, while, by understanding and improving emotional intelligence, employees can improve their relationships through every small action in their daily lives.
In conclusion, there are many causes that lead to stress at work and they are badly influencing people's lives. This essay points out two main causes and each of these causes has more than one possible solution. The essay emphasises that the main cause of stress is relationships at work and the best solution is to understand and improve employees' emotional intelligence.
References:
Arnold, J., Cooper, C.& Robertson, I.(1998)Work Psychology--Understanding Human Behaviour in the Workplace, 3rd ed. Great Britain: Financial Times Professional Limited
Buck, V.(1972)Working Under Pressure, London: Staples Press
Littlejohn, P.(2012) 'The Missing Link: Using Emotional Intelligence to Reduce Workplace Stress and Workplace Violence in Our Nursing and Other Health Care Professions' Journal of Professional Nursing, vol.28 issue 6, pp.360-368
Oxford Dictionaries(2013), stress [online] Available at:<http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/stress?q=stress> [Accessed 10th March 2013]
Weiss, W.(2012), Workplace Stress--Symtoms and Solutions [online] Available at:<http://www.disabled-world.com/disability/types/psychological/workplacestress.php> [Accessed 11th March 2012]
