Guest Blog by Peninsula Ireland: Health & Safety Essentials – Workplace Stress

Guest blog post – HR Advice from Peninsula

An employee will often be confronted by a number of stress factors. An organisation’s culture can be the key to determining the factors related to stress. Is it because of long working hours, bringing work home, poor communication or management style? Let’s take a look…

Demands

If too much work is expected and with insufficient resources provided, this can result in elevated stress levels. The work may be too difficult, or management may have inadequately trained the employee to complete the task.

Control of work

Lack of control over the job can result in heightened stress levels, this may happen when the pace of work is set outside of the worker’s capability.

Workplace relationships

Some employees may have difficulty interacting or building relationships with existing staff. In some situations, this can lead to interpersonal conflicts, which could be down to a lack of communication.

Position and training

Stress can develop at induction because the position isn’t clearly defined, or they don’t fully understand what’s expected. A lack of support from their surrounding colleagues and management, as well as an absence or inadequacy of training, can result in stress.

The result for employers…

If stress embeds itself within the workplace it may result in an increased number of employees calling in sick, which will, in turn, reduce output and productivity.

Stress also has a significant impact on morale and motivation levels, plus a high staff turnover and recruitment problems indicate a lack of control by management.

Solutions

In order to reduce workplace stress, employers should adopt a prevention, management and minimisation policy. This approach looks at the issues of stress, what the sourced of stress are, and will help stop its reoccurrence – and it’s important to find a balance between micro-management and a lack of engagement.

Finally, you can also minimise stress by offering counselling to employees or assistance programmes.

If you have any questions regarding the issues in this article, please don’t hesitate to contact Peninsula’s 24 Hour Advice Service on 01 855 50 50.