Impact of Stressful Working Conditions

Impact of Stressful Working Environments

1. Research Proposal

Working with the highest degree of efficiency is what most organizations need from their workers. A company that is comprised of a highly efficient workforce is likely to meet its production standards quite easily and in essence, make the highest attainable profit. Different factors hinder efficiency in the workplace. The factors in question range from personal issues to the current state of the workplace. It is important to note that there are also various mitigation techniques that may be employed to ensure employees work at their maximum potential.

The following research intends to investigate one of the factors that are responsible for a significant drop in work efficiencies over the years. This is the stressful working environment. A number of factors most of which are personal may bring about stress in human beings. The workplace itself being a courier of stress and stress-related factors may be disastrous for the general working efficiency. The company whose working environment is a stress courier is likely to suffer a high degree of employee turnover, a reduction of general work efficiency and finally a fall in revenue.

Similar to a reduction in work efficiency, there are also a variety of factors which may be responsible for the stressful working environment. This ranges from insecurity to a general unconducive working area. Since it has become apparent that a stressful working environment spells nothing but losses to the company affected, many factors can be done to ensure that work area remains stress-free. Implementation of such mitigation techniques is not possible without a proper understanding of the problem in question first. This is what the research intends to do. A thorough understanding will provide the means of solving the issue at hand hence work efficiency will be guaranteed on a variety of working environments.

2. Outline

Stress is basically defined as an emotional strain which can be as a result of demanding factors (Kaniasty, 21). The state of emotional strain is not only disadvantageous to the company at hand, but also to the individual who is experiencing it. Doctors have noted various physical effects of stress toward the human body, for starters, individuals endure weight loss. Loss of appetite is also another cause hence the victims constantly lack energy that is a crucial aspect of working efficiently. Stress opens up the door to a variety of illnesses including migraines, headaches and so forth.

In light of what has been discussed above, one can logically conclude that an individual who is subject to the above health issues cannot work efficiently at all. In our research scenario, the question of, what if the stress is caused by the workplace itself, comes to mind. If the working environment was subject to stressful conditions, a large portion of the workforce might become affected. This contrasts with personal stress since only a single person is affected.

In general, a non-conducive working environment is subject to a great deal of stress. A work area is said to be non-conducive if it does not offer some of the most important factors that characterize an ideal working environment. Let us say, for example; a working area is located in one of the most unsafe towns in the region. The crime curve in such an area climbs exponentially high under most conditions and hardly a day passes with no offenses reported. Working in such an area with no guaranteed security is likely to make the workers be stressed since they are uncertain of their safety. A typical employee would work with the fear that they might be attacked at any time and their possessions stolen. Such a working environment will be impacted by a great deal of stress. In light of the above, the following are some of the causes of stress in a working area.

Causes of Stress in a Working Area

Various scholars admit that an excessive amount of work is responsible for a considerable degree of stress (Kaniasty, 29). The worker in question needs to do a disproportionate amount of work within a short time. The worker needs to divide his or her time accordingly and mostly does not have time to socialize or do other things that characterize a typical human being. An excessive amount of workload may be possible in an environment where there are insufficient workers such that an individual worker is forced to take on the role of others. The stress may be elevated most in a situation where the pay does not reflect the amount of workload endured.

Overloading may be disadvantageous to the company in question in that the individual might work inefficiently since he or she is not committed to a specific line of duty (Winker, 67). The inefficient work output may be distributed