STRESS AND SAFETY

In this lesson, You will learn:

Recognize the causes and symptoms of work-related stress for effective intervention.
Understand the impact of work stress on physical, emotional, and psychological well-being.
Develop strategies to manage and reduce work-related stress for improved job satisfaction.
Implement stress reduction measures at the workplace, including communication, autonomy,
and support.

Stress is a feeling of worry, tension or unease. It can be caused by a variety of factors, including work,
relationships, finances, and health. Stress can have both physical and emotional symptoms, such as
headaches, muscle tension, sleep problems, and anxiety. Stress is a harmful physical and emotional
response that demands the job does not match the skills, resources or needs of the worker. Work
stress involves the worker's feelings because of differences between the demands of the job and the
individual's ability to cope with those demands.

Causes of stress in the workplace include environmental conditions, overload of work, role
ambiguity, lack of response, personality, personal and family problems and role conflicts.

Other causes of work stress include work complexity, lack of control over work, public safety
responsibility, job security, lack of psychological support and environmental safety concerns.

A survey of life insurance company workers found that work stress can be caused by a restructuring,
acquisition, or layoff of a job, mandatory overtime, different workloads, speed of work, lack of
opportunities to advance, bureaucracy, lack of staff and money or technology, low wages or
alternatives.

The human response to work stress can be classified into five categories:

Subjective
Behavioral
Cognitive
Physical
Organizational

Psychological response to stress may eventually lead to autoimmune disease. The effects of stress
can be reversed until the individual reaches the limit. After that limit, with constant pressure, the
effects can become pathological. Research has shown three stages of the human response to
stress:

Alarm
Resistance
Fatigue

The best policy on stress is to learn to accept it. Attempt to remove the workplace from all sources of
stress are unlikely to succeed. The psychological workload can be measured in three ways:

State-based subjective rating

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 Behavioral time allocation
Psychophysiological strategies

Source: depositphotos.com

Psychological questionnaires are used to study how workers feel about their work. Shift work occurs
when most people are on leisure time. The circadian rhythm or biological clock, within the body,
determines when a person works or sleeps. Survey workers reported lower job satisfaction with
rotating shifts. Shift work can reduce productivity and increase the number of accidents. It is not
possible to eliminate all sources of work stress.

Managers can reduce work stress by reducing role ambiguity and increasing feedback and autonomy
at work. Managers can reduce worker stress by reducing exposure to physical hazards, changing work
speeds and eliminating monotonous or short-cycle operations.

According to the life insurance study, work stress can be reduced by providing mental health
insurance benefits to employees, improving communication between employees and management,
providing information on how to deal with stress to workers, providing job descriptions and regular
chats with employees. Recognize and reward contributions, post, work rules and offer child and adult
care programs.

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Other ways to reduce stress include allowing flexible working hours, providing reasonable benefits,
providing adequate training and access to technology, providing space and time to relax, workplaces
without rooms for storing personal items and maintaining a sense of humor.

Individuals can effectively respond to stressful workloads by assigning responsibilities and learning to
relax. Methods of relaxation include meditation, biofeedback, music and exercise. The most
important factor in managing stress is learning to recognize its symptom and take them
seriously.

Reference:

The link between stress and worker safety. Available at:

https://blr.com/resources/the-link-between-stress-and-worker-safety/

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