Workplace stress

    Workplace stress is something that all of us have experienced at some point of our lives. Most jobs involve some degree of stress which can come from working with your peers, customer demands, management demands, and problems at home.

While there have been studies indicating how small amount of stress or in short burst are beneficial in helping you stay alert and be competitive, prolonged or excessive stress can be damaging to your mental health and may affect your relationships with others inside and outside of work. Stress can also increase the risk of a mental breakdown, injury, fatigue, and burnout.

There are many signs and symptoms of stress which can be both physical and non-physical. Some of the physical symptoms you may experience are chest pain/irregular heart beat, fatigue, loss of appetite, sleeping problems, and episodes of fast, shallow breathing and excessive sweating. Non-physical signs of stress may include feeling overwhelmed or frustrated, feeling guilty or unhappy, being irritable, losing confidence, and excessive worrying.

Some of the major contributing factors to work stress are working long hours or overtime, taking work home, time pressure and unrealistic targets and goals, having limited control over your work, job insecurity, bullying, and low level of recognition and job satisfaction. Stress can be a challenging topic to deal with and can be a permanent problem in the long term. It is important for management and colleagues to identify when an employee is experiencing excessive amount of work stress and report it to the relevant authority.

 

The best way to reduce or eliminate the cause of stress is by designing work, systems and workplaces to eliminate or minimise risks to psychological health;  monitoring the health of workers and workplace conditions; and consulting with workers. In the worst case scenario, workers compensation is provided to employees who have been extremely affected by workplace stress and is covered under the no-fault workers compensation legislation.