Managing Employee Stress at Work

What is Employee Stress? Description
John Evans, UK
Stress is the response of people to unreasonable / excessive pressure or demands placed on them.
Stress is not always negative. It may also bring out the best in individuals at times. It may induce an individual to discover innovative and smarter way of doing things.
But usually, the term stress has a negative implications.

Causes / Sources of Employee Stress: Stress Factors
Gene Evans, UK
Obviously, the best way to deal with work stress would depend on what's causing it. There are several ~categories of stress factors you may want to consider:
A. ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS. For example:
- Rigid, centralized or formal organization structure
- Low degree of participation in decision-making
- Excessive control over the employees by a manager
- Conflicting goals
- Ambiguous goals
- Ineffective communication
- Peer pressure
- Poor opportunities for advancement
- Discrimination in pay / salary structure
- Strict rules and regulations
- etc.
B. JOB-RELATED FACTORS. For example:
- Monotonous nature of work
- Unhealthy working conditions
- Dangerous working conditions
- Lack of confidentiality
C. EXTRA-ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS. For example:
- Economic crisis
- Inflation
- Technological change
- Social changes
D. INDIVIDUAL FACTORS. For example:
- Conflicting / not understanding / inability to comply with expectations from family members, peer, superior and subordinates have from the employee.
- Certain personality traits such as being impatient, aggressive, rigid, feeling time pressure, etc.
- Family issues, personal problems, financial problems, changes.
Hope this helps you to get started.

Establish Awareness that Stress is a Company Issue at Board Level
Myriam Baaten, Management Consultant, Netherlands
Reducing employee stress should start with commitment of the company management. Leaders should be aware of the stress indicators as mentioned by Gene. Employee stress must be a topic which should be discussed on the working floor and in the boardroom. Often, the company culture inhibits people to be open and honest about their personal situation with respect to stress.
It should be part of the company culture not to indicate stress just as a personal problem but rather as a problem of the company itself. Getting insight in the financial consequences of stress will motivate top management to address this issue.

Executive Coaching to Cope with Work Stress
antoniaweldin, Other
Job stress or we can say work stress is very common these days. Thousands of peoples in almost every profession are suffering from stress. But nowadays we are lucky to have many business and executive coaches who can help us to deal with work stress in a smart way.

Dealing with Employees Stress as a Manager
Jaap de Jonge, Editor, Netherlands
See also the discussion topic about what employees can do themselves to prevent stress/burnout….