Management of Stress: Consequences and Impacts

This article discusses the consequences and impacts of stress in the workplace. It explores the negative effects on health, productivity, job satisfaction, and work relationships. It emphasizes the importance of managing stress for both employees and organizations.

Management of Stress
Consequences:
The word stress is derived from a Latin word Stringere, which means to pull something tight, this was
brought in daily use to define the words like hardship. Which was later used to define pressure or
strain on individual either mentally or physically. And when this stress increases mentally this have
several consequences that are bad and this are not just bad for the work but are also bad for a
person’s health(Cartwright & Cooper 1997).
Some of the consequences that can be taken as critical ones are mentioned below:
1. Stress is directly related to diseases, and this disease are not just mental but are also physical. It
has been proven that high blood pressure and heart diseases have a direct link with stress.
According to British Heart Foundation Coronary Prevention Group 180,000 people die due to heart
disease every year which comes out to be about 500 people per day and out of those 30%-40% are
caused due to stress because of mental and emotional disturbances occurred at workplace
(Cartwright & Cooper 1997).
2. Another consequence can be Job Satisfaction, Job Satisfaction and Job stress are related to each
other but in an inverse manner, the less the job stress the more satisfactory is the job for any
employee. And this lack of job satisfaction has its own major consequences that is the chances of
an employee to leave the company increases, which can be harmful for any industries growth
(Kumar & Jain 2012).
3. Job stress may also cause a bad impact on organizational commitment, which can be explained as
the commitment that an employee identifies with organization and goal in his life due to which he
has a will to maintain a relationship with that organization is also impacted if the employee is not
satisfied with the job due to job stress and this can be a consequence for both employee as well as
employer, it may ruin the image of company and can also have a deep impact on employees
mindset about his goal in life (Kumar & Jain 2012).
4. Stress at workplace can also have bad influence on interpersonal relationship of a person, if a
person is suffering from stress at workplace than it can affect its decision making abilities which can
affect the project and also if a person is going through stress than this can lead to
miscommunication and also conflicts amongst employees, which affect both employer and
employee as it will have a bad impact on project. Stress also affects the patience level of a person
this can cause problems too which can result in less focus of particular person on the work and also
it has been observed that people suffering from stress respond in a defensive manner which makes
it difficult for them to respond to others point with responsiveness (Leung, Chan & Cooper 2015).

The Impacts of Stress
Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from
adverse or demanding circumstances (Oxford). Workplace stress has
considered as a very serious problem in organization which could affect
the working environment and productivity as a whole (Cox et al, 2000).
Many modern factors such as technological change, stronger competition,
more challenges, and more responsibility cause stress at workplace (Avey
et al, 2009).
Due to the fact that workplace stress is becoming a terrible issue for
organizations now, there are several important impacts that it could
generate to organizations and for managers to consider. First, the impact
on productivity. Stress could affect to both physical and emotional of
employees which all result in the loss of work productivity. Physically, it
makes employees to be tired and headaches (Kristen et al, 2012), while
emotionally it makes people lose focus and perfection by taking the job
for granted, resulting in poor performances.
Moreover, the sick time and absence that occur in organizations are a
result of stress. The office of National Statistic and current research claim
that 75% of the lost time and absence are the result of stress
(Blanchflower, David, 2014). Second, stress could affect the working
environment and work relationship. According to 2009 Psycho Social
Working Conditions (PWC), there are 16.7% of all working individual
though their job is very or extremely stressful. The negative stressful that
generate from workload and organizational structure can affect on
individual, team, and a whole company (Blanchflower, David, 2014).
Individual who suffer from stress could lose concentration, has low
motivation, and has poor judgment. Individual's view over companies and
job become skewed and may misjudge something around them. For
example, individual may feel promotion is not earn through merit but
connection and favoritism. People may feel unfair regarding the workloads
and responsibility compare with other employees.
All of these could affect the relationship between employees to
employees, and relationship between employee to managers and
company which ultimately damage the working environment and culture
of organizations.

Last but not least, stress can have a very negative impact on human's
health. Stress is not only having bad impact on organization but also
individual employee. People who find their work is stressful often suffer
from many kinds of difficult health problems, yet they do not know that
stress is the main cause of their sickness. Costa (1996), claimed that
people who working under pressure and having stress by working
conditions can have negative psycho physiological consequences such as
heart disease, gas-tron intestine dysfunction, and hypertension. Moreover,
many researches have been linked stress to various medical conditions
such as asthma, fatigue, back pain, headaches, and fluctuating blood
pressure (Terrie, Yvette C, 2010).
The managerial prerogative stems from the right or discretion given or obtained
from the employer to the manager in the method used to achieve results from its
subordinates. They often include a framework in which the manager is allowed to
exercise such right. Such rights includes the hiring process, promotion entitlement,
the termination of an employee and the details of a job scope as well.
The employer has an absolute right to manage the business as they deem fit. This
prerogative extends to the culture of the workplace more often than not and is often
questionable when it falls outside the ambit of the company’s rules and regulations.
This right to decision making is often met with a negative connotation in the
workplace and is to be avoided as it can raise contrary fears that a resistance
towards the management’s right to manage. Although guided by the code of conduct
of the organization, managers tend to over exercise this prerogative. The top
management are in place for decision making and the ability to command its
subordinates. The entitlement of position demands such and often breeds
resentment if not carried out correctly. This is often due to bad management
behavior which creates a stressful working environment. The tributes that managers
partake in negative management prerogative does not fall short of micro managing.
Micro management is often used as a tool to maintain power or authority over others.

As the higher up in management deem themselves the decision makers they tend to
flex that authority down onto others by closely observing and controlling the work of
employees. This management point of view in reality is a waste of time and in result
makes the employee less productive. The constant reminder of how or when the
work is to be done creates a high level of stress in the working environment. This
contagious level of stress is often carried back to ones personal life and effects the
circle around them with surrounding friends and family (Debra L. Nelson, 15 Aug
2012). Besides a highly stressful environment the employee will experience a
lowered self esteem.
An employee is employed for their skill set to contribute towards the organization.
When their autonomy is being jeopardized by constantly being monitored and being
questioned or criticized about their work will eventually lower their self esteem. When
this happens they begin to question their purpose of being there and their skillset will
be put to question. This hinders growth and causes further detriment to their mental
wellbeing. Depression is now one of the leading causes of mental illness and is the
second leading cause of death in 15-29 year olds according to the World Health
Organization (WHO, 22 March 2018). When an employee goes to work being
controlled they are most likely to become depressed (Hari, 2018 ). If an employee
does not feel they are contributing or have the freedom to express or the autonomy
to get the job done then their job becomes more meaningless.
It is in our human nature to feel validated ,to have fulfillment or to have purpose and
to belong to a group. We as humans thrive in society or circles and are social by
nature. If we are place in solitary situations, we would be going against our own
nature.
Examples of managerial prerogatives
Managerial prerogatives are very crucial factors for the decision making aspects of the
organizational managers in the contemporary business environment. It has been seen in many
cases that self esteem of the employees has been put in a difficult position because of the
positions they have been doing their jobs (Storey 2014). If their supervisors continue to put
some questions about their work, this will surely have a negative impact on their confidence.
The growth of the employees relies on the amount of motivation they get from their
supervisors and colleagues.

Therefore, employee unions will be able to make the best efforts so employees can
contribute to the organization without being controlled and in a peaceful condition of mind.
This kind of controlling and manipulating leadership generally goes on within the
organizations that practice autocratic leadership. Employee unions have the responsibility
that this autocratic leadership should not have any kind of negative influence within the
minds of the employees. Some discretionary actions must be taken up by the organizations so
they can make proper advancements for their career. One significant fact in this section is that
employers should not make any steps towards using the children for their works (Visser
2016). This will be a simple violation of the rules. Apart from that, their actions should not
cause domestic violence of any kind. All the laws and regulations of the organizations should
be maintained by the employers and managerial prerogatives will have to be abided by
(Hadani, Dahan and Doh 2015). Some examples of management of stress in the workplace
context would be given in this section. When the organization has to pay less to the
employees due to previous losses, employees are stressed out as they have to put in more
efforts but they end up getting less money. The second example is regarding too much fatigue
among workers due to hard work. Sometimes they have to work overnight to meet the
business objectives of the organization. They have to more overtime works due to cutbacks of
staffs. Sometimes it has also been seen that employees do not have control over their working
due to the interference of the management. Other times, it has been observed that
expectations from the management on employees have been rising but the amount of job
satisfaction does not increase at all. The employees have to work at optimum levels and this
becomes a huge problem for them most of the rimes.
Employees should always be given the proper opportunities so they can develop their
interpersonal skills. So, they will be able to contribute to their organizations in the best ways.
When the leader and employees of the organization would learn to operate in the organization

with collaboration, it will surely yield good outcomes and higher profits for the organization
(Shahrilnizam, Balakrishnan and Murshamsul 2015). Apart from that employees must not
give away to the autocratic leadership patterns of the organization. Otherwise, they will go
into deep depression that would seriously affect their capabilities for innovation and
creativity.
References:
1. Cartwright, S & Cooper, C 1997, Managing workplace stress, Elsevier, Amsterdam,
p. 2.
2. Kumar, S & Jain, A 2012, "Essence and Consequences of Stress in the
Workplace", Journal of Organisation and Human Behaviour, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 6-7.
3. Leung, M, Chan, I & Cooper, C 2015, Stress management in the construction
industry, 1st ed, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, pp. 149-151.
Hadani, M., Dahan, N.M. and Doh, J.P., 2015. The CEO as chief political officer: Managerial
discretion and corporate political activity. Journal of Business Research, 68(11), pp.2330-
2337.
Shahrilnizam, M., Balakrishnan, P. and Murshamsul, M.K., 2015. Employer’s managerial
prerogative right: An evaluation of its relevancy to the employer-employee
relationship. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 23, pp.227-238.
Storey, J., 2014. Managerial Prerogative and the Question of Control (Routledge Revivals).
Routledge.
Visser, J., 2016. What happened to collective bargaining during the great recession?. IZA
Journal of Labor Policy, 5(1), p.9.
Lim’s References

Blanchflower, David, 2014, The impact of Stress in Workplace, Management
Service, Vol.58(2), pp. 37-39
DeTienne, Kristen, Agle, Bradley, Phillips, James, 2012, The Impact of Moral Stress
Compare to Other Stressors on Employee Fatigue, Job Satisfaction, and Turnover:
An Empirical Investigation, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol.110(3), pp.377-391
Terrie, Yvette C, 2010, The impacts of Stress on Health: Learning to Cope. (Feature
Focus), Pharmacy Time, Vol.76(4), p.66(3)
Dan’s References
Debra L. Nelson, James Cambell Quick, Joyce A. Adkins, and Thomas A Wright,
Preventive Stress Management in Organizations , American Psychological
Association, 15 Aug 2012
Johann Hari ,Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and
the Unexpected Solutions, January 23rd 2018 , Bloomsbury USA
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression, 22 March 2018