With year-end hitting many organisations during the last month, stress levels have been at a high level. Research has shown stress can be detrimental to the health and productivity of employees, but is all stress inherently bad?
Data from the Kenexa Best Workplaces Survey 2012 shows 64 per cent agreement from employees that the level of work-related stress they experience is acceptable. Some people say stress helps them work better and motivates them to "go harder". If an individual sees a difficult task as challenging rather than stressful, they will be motivated to complete it and find the experience less stressful.
As a manager it is important to ensure people are able to cope with the stresses of their job and still produce quality work.
If we consider the Job Demands-Resources Model of burnout we see two important factors influencing work-related stress: job demands and the resources employees have at their disposal to achieve them.
Four common job demands are whether employees feel their workload is too high, their environment is unsafe, the systems or equipment they need to do their job are working or their work-life ratio is balanced. Four common job resources are ensuring employees feel they have control over their work, take part in decisions that affect their job, are given regular feedback on performance and have support from co-workers.
