Stress In The Workplace: How Stress Can Affect Job Performance

Workplace StressAmericans are known for placing a lot of emphasis on work and career. As a result, many professionals struggle with dealing with workplace stress occasionally, and some on a day-to-day basis. It is important to understand that while some stress is good for an individual, too much stress can have negative effects on a person’s physical health, job performance, and emotional well-being.

“Sixty-nine percent of employees report that work is a significant source of stress and 41% say they typically feel tense or stressed out during the workday.”

So how big of a problem can workplace stress be? According to a recent 2001 study, “Job stress is estimated to cost U.S. industry more than $300 billion a year in absenteeism, turnover, diminished productivity and medical, legal and insurance costs.”

How Stress Affects ProductivityMany individuals in the workforce deal with at least some sort of stress in their lives, Sometimes it is stress that stems from family problems, finances, and other personal issues, and other times stress comes directly from the workplace. Some individuals deal with so much stress on a daily basis that it can significantly affect their job performance and productivity.

Source: Society For Human Resource Management: Stress Management

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How Much Job Stress Do You Have?

“In 2001, the median number of days away from work as a result of anxiety, stress, and related disorders was 25 – substantially greater than the median of 6 for all nonfatal injury and illness cases.”

Use the figure above to determine how much stress you have about your job. The results may surprise you. High levels of stress can not only affect job performance, but also a person’s health in general. For example, “in a study of a large, multi-employer, multi-site employee population, healthcare expenditures for employees with high levels of stress were 46% higher than those for employees who did not have high levels of stress.” High levels of stress and poor health can result in not only low productivity, but also entire days missed from work.

Source: Center For Association Leadership 6

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How To Reduce Stress

In order to increase day-to-day productivity, it’s important that a person try to reduce feelings of stress and anxiety. The American Psychological Association outlines a few ways individuals can decrease stress:

•Take short breaks at work to stand up, stretch, breathe deeply and shake off the accumulating tension.•Take care of yourself by eating right, getting enough sleep, drinking plenty of water and engaging in regular physical activity•Keep a to-do list in order to manage your priorities.•Ask for professional help if you find that you cannot manage stress effectively on your own.

Find A Healthy Balance Between Work and Home Life

“Conflict between work and family roles was found to lower the perceived quality of both work and family life which, in turn, influences organizational outcomes such as productivity, absenteeism and turnover.”

The best way to eliminate or decrease workplace stress is to find a healthy balance between your work life and your home life.Individuals will still deal will stress from both places, but being able to recognize how to separate the two and how do manage the stress for each will make all the difference.

Finding a healthy balance between work life and home life will lead to better management of stress. As stated before, some stress is natural and can even be helpful. Choosing to ignore feelings of stress or anxiety will only cause more problems in terms of overall health, job productivity, job performance, and happiness.

“Find healthy ways to manage stress. Work to replace unhealthy coping strategies, such as eating junk food, smoking or drinking alcohol with healthy behaviors, like exercise, meditation or talking with friends and family. Keep in mind that unhealthy behaviors develop over time and can be difficult to change. Take it slow and focus on changing one behavior at a time. Some behaviors are very difficult to change and may require the help of a licensed professional such as a psychologist..” 3

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Sources"CDC - NIOSH Publications and Products - STRESS At Work." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/99-101/>.

"HR Magazine: Stress Management." SHRM Online - Society for Human Resource Management. Society for Human Resource Management. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www.shrm.org/Publications/hrmagazine/EditorialContent/Pages/0906tyler.aspx>.

"Overwhelmed by Workplace Stress? You're Not Alone." American Psychological Association (APA). American Psychological Association, 2011. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/work-stress.aspx>.

"PHWP: Good Company Newsletter: By the Numbers: A Psychologically Healthy Workplace Fact Sheet." PHWP: Home. APA Practice Organization. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www.phwa.org/resources/goodcompany/newsletter/article/217>.

"Stress - Manage Your Stress, Measure Your Stress, and Reduce Your Stress." WebMD - Better Information. Better Health. WebMD, LLC, 2011. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/stress-management-topic-overview?page=2>.

"High Anxiety - Association Management Magazine - Resources - ASAE." ASAE - The Center for Association Leadership. The Center for Association Leadership. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www.asaecenter.org/Resources/AMMagArticleDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=5252>.

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