The article by Corporate Wellness Magazine supposes that workplace stress has detrimental effects on employees’ health and organizational productivity. Workplace stress refers to harmful psychological and physical outcomes occurring when job requirements mismatch with workers’ needs, resources, and capacities. Studies from Northwestern National Life and Yale University found that stressed workers constitute 40% and 29%, respectively, of workers (Corporate Wellness Magazine, n.d.).
The most affected persons are youths, females, and low-skilled laborers. The case is so because casual workers have limited job control and bargaining power for employment security. The factors causing stress are in two categories: physical and psychosocial. Examples of physical stressors include noise, poor working posture, ergonomic elements, and a lousy office layout. Psychosocial stressors include a lack of work-life balance, poor work design, harassment, high job demand, job insecurity, and bullying. Notably, psychosocial factors significantly contribute more to workplace stress than physical stressors. Studies show that health-related adverse effects include cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and mental health issues. The organizational performance-related adverse outcomes include reduced productivity and absenteeism.
Mitigations against workplace stress are in three categories: primary, secondary, and tertiary. The focus of primary interventions is to alleviate potential stressors. The primary interventions include work environment redesigning, resting allowances in-between shifts, allowing workers to participate in the decision-making process, providing adequate resources, delegating duties according to employees’ capacities, rewards, and promotions inclusions, fostering workplace safety, and alleviating physical hazards.
The secondary interventions aim to improve workers’ attitudes toward job challenges and stressors. Secondary interventions include workers’ training and knowledge impartation, psychological therapies, and frequent physical health check-ups. Tertiary interventions concentrate on controlling adverse health effects on employees. The tertiary interventions include return-to-work plans and offering healthcare and worker assistance programs to employees in need (Corporate Wellness Magazine).
References
Corporate Wellness Magazine. (n.d.). Workplace Stress: A Silent Killer of Employee Health and Productivity. Web.