Stress Management and Performance: A Workplace Perspective

This essay delves into the critical role of stress management in improving workplace performance. It defines stress, outlining its physical, emotional, and mental impacts, particularly in professional settings. The essay identifies various workplace stressors, including task, role, and interpersonal demands, emphasizing their negative effects on employee well-being and organizational productivity. It highlights the importance of effective stress management techniques, such as maintaining a positive workplace culture, tracking stressors, and promoting mindfulness. The essay also discusses the impact of stress on employee morale, productivity, and decision-making, while emphasizing the role of managers in guiding employees through stressful situations. Furthermore, it underscores how learning about stress management empowers managers to develop effective teams, reduce conflicts, and improve communication. The essay concludes by stressing the need for organizations to implement strategies that promote stress management, ultimately contributing to a healthier and more productive work environment.

Learning About Stress Management Can
Help Improve Performance In The
Workplace

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
The way learning about stress management can assist in improving performance................3
in the workplace....................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Stress management is defined as wide spectrum of psychotherapies and techniques which
emphasize on controlling the level of stress of an individual, usually for the motive of enhancing
everyday functioning. It states in terms of the way it impacts psychological and physical health
of an individual (Cottrell, 2015). Proper management of stress is very necessary in order to
enhance the performance at workplace. This is an essay report that explains the way learning
about stress administration can assist in enhancing the performance at workplace. This helps in
gaining insights about the way to manage stress within organisation and improve the
performance of company.
MAIN BODY
The way learning about stress management can assist in improving performance in the
workplace
Stress includes physical, emotional and mental strain taken by an individual. It is defined
as the way it influence physical and psychological health of a person. It occurs when the demand
surpass the coping ability of an individual and disrupt their psychological equilibrium. At
workplace, stress occurs when the workforce perceives a situation or circumstance to be too
straining to handle. Thus, threatening to their well-being. There are some stressors that underline
distinct circumstances or situations for stress at work. One of the stressor is task demands in
which an individual doesn't know about where a job will lead (Thompson, 2015). It is also a
sense of not knowing whether the tasks will alter. This uncertainty is the cause of stress that
apparent itself in concern regarding career progress, feeling of lack of control, and time
pressures. The another stressor is role demands which is a conflict that occurs at the time when a
worker is exposed to difficult or inconsistent expectations. For instance: interole conflict and
intrarole conflict, role ambiguity and person-role conflict. All these conflicts create stress to
individual at workplace.
The another stressor is interpersonal demands which includes emotional issues, poor
leadership due to lack of administration experience, poor style of leadership etc. and sexual
harassment. Physical demands is also the stressor due to which an individual takes stress at
workplace (Loehr, Loehr and Schwartz, 2003). There are various categories of work which are
physically demanding. These includes travel, extreme working conditions, strenuous activity,

exposure to hazardous substance or materials and working in loud office. All these are the
different types of stressors that creates stress at work. It is very necessary for an organisation to
manage the stress at workplace in an appropriate way in order to improve the performance and
productivity of employees as well as organisations.
At the time when demand exceeds the capacity of an individual, then he/ she start to
make expedient choice. This increases the stress and leads an individual to be short tempered.
There are various common sources due to which stress arise at workplace (Hargrove, 2013).
These includes low salaries, excessive workloads, lack of social support, less growth or
advancement opportunities, not having adequate control over the decisions which are related to
job, work which is not challenging or engaging and the unclear performance expectations or
conflicting demands. There are various ways which can use by the management of an
organisation in order to reduce stress from workplace. Utilization of effective techniques or
approaches to stress management will help in ensuring effective work performance. Maintaining
effective culture at workplace helps in relieving stress of employees at workplace. At an
organisational level, balancing stress can be very powerful as this helps in maximizing
productivity and accomplishing organisational goals.
Tracking the stressors is one among the ways which can be use by an individual or
management to identify the situations that develop most stress. Recording the thoughts,
information and feelings regarding environment that involves circumstances and people
involved, the way you reacted and physical setting. Stay organised is the another way to reduce
stress at workplace (Loehr, Loehr and Schwartz, 2003). Proper planning of each activity or task
assigned to an individual can greatly declines the stress at work. Being organised with time will
avoid the rushing to go out and being late in the morning. This helps in avoiding the adverse
impacts of clutter and helps an individual to be more efficient at workplace. Managers can
reduce stress at workplace by encouraging mindfulness in the employees. The idea of meditation
or mindfulness is more popular at organisation. Encouraging this at office will help employees in
reducing stress and feeling relaxed at workplace.
Today, stress is vital part of job and it is unavoidable at workplace. The jobs of present
day are full of challenges, highly insecure, high demands and expectations that cause stress.
However, without job stress, an individual would not be very productive. Less stress at
workplace is good but, it is unrealistic to create 100 percent stress free workplace. So, the most

appropriate way to manage stress at workplace is to get proper understanding about what the
stress management is as well as the ways to handle stress at workplace (Loehr, Loehr and
Schwartz, 2003). The belief systems of individuals exercise a tough hold over their learning.
Beliefs are utilized by the individuals as a base for action. The beliefs regarding self-worth as
well as individual potential are powerful: some of the people have an intensely held belief that
they are ‘not supposed to be’ at workplace (Cottrell, 2015). Apart from this, emotions are the key
factor that lead an individual to take stress. At the time of being emotional, an individual
emphasize on words like ‘I feel I will never do this.’ ‘This irritates and upsets me, I do not feel
good in such situations. All these creates stress in mind of an individual. Proper management of
stress will help an individual in improving his/ her performance at place.
Proper learning about stress management will help in improving performance at
workplace. Having good learning regarding stress management will enable manager to motivate
employees in better way. Stress at workplace influence the morale of employees, thus ultimately
impacts their performance. It demotivates the workforce which cause increase in employee
turnover and absenteeism. Good knowledge about stress management will enable manager to
improve the morale of workers which motivates them and keep them emphasized on their
performance and jobs. Adequate learning about stress management also helps in improving the
productivity in stressful circumstance or situation. If the morale of workforce is high then, they
remain intact with relationship at workplace. This results in enhancing productivity of employees
and workplace as well. By utilization of stress management skills, the chances will be very less
of complaints from customer or ineffective decision making, even in stressful situations (Cottrell,
2015).
Wellness concept consist of various things that helps an in staying stress free. When an
individual feel stressed, taking deep breath, emphasize on inhaling and exhaling slowly can help
an individual in calm down. Stress is the normal part of an individual's life, but level of stress
influences the ability to succeed professionally. There are various physiological changes
undergoes in the body at the time of stress including shallow breathing, tighten chest etc. But by
doing yoga, stress can be reduced (Gardiner and Ba refoot , 2019).
Apart from this, this learning enables manger to lead people in difficult times as when
workforce feel stress, they require directions and guidance for which they look to manager. Good
learning of manager helps in determining the stressful issues appropriately and improving the

morale and motivation of employees, which results in improving performance. Moreover, stress
management learning also supports in reducing conflicts at workplace. Proper management of
stress will enable employees not to feel pressurise that reduces the chances of workplace
conflicts. It mainly arises at workplace due to existence of people with different personalities,
opinions and increasing stress. It may result in ineffective culture and broken relationships.
However, good learning of manager regarding effective stress management will develop team
work, prevent such distractions as well as makes life easier of everyone. This will be resulting in
improved performance of employees at workplace.
Stress is potentially a destructive issue that leads an individual to ill health, undermine or
destroy relationships, develop a pressurized atmosphere for others and reduced effectiveness. All
the jobs include a degree of pressure as well as the risk of stress to some degree, but working
with others can leave an individual specifically prone to stress. It arises as an outcome of the way
an individual react to pressures (Thompson, 2015). It is more possible to occur when there is
little pressure or too much pressure. It can do a lot of harm to an individual in terms of low
motivation, stress related illness, tension and irritability, reduce job satisfaction etc. Some
strategies help an individual to get rid of stress. These include be assertive, changing attitude
towards something, set boundaries, time management etc.
In addition to this, stress management enables manager to improve the process of
communication (Cottrell, 2015). When the level of stress is high, communication is impacted
negatively. Employees will not discuss regarding jobs with other people, instead, they look for
administrators for discussing about the issues or problems of company. Here, the learning about
stress management supports in determining the issue and resolve it. This results in strengthened
process of communication. Effective process of communication helps in communicating all the
information clearly to all the members of team which in turn helps in improving productivity and
performance of employees. Effective stress management skills will also enable manager in
developing effective teams. Stressed employees could not concentrate on their work and are not
enable to work collectively in team. There are situations when one-member comment on other
member of team and they feel irritated. At this time, employee discusses about their issues with
manager and seek their assistance to resolve it. In this, by handling stress and utilizing effective
resources of stress management resources, the manager will enable to develop effective team and

encourage them to work collectively which supports in enhancing their performance. So, in this
way, the learning about stress management can help in improving productivity at workplace.
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that stress is the act which
impacts psychology and physical health of an individual adversely. It is very necessary for the
organisations to perform such activities that helps in managing stress at workplace effectively.
Managers and employees also need to have learning about how to manager stress in an
appropriate way as this will support them in working at organisation in more productive manner
and attain goals and objectives of company.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cottrell, S., 2015. Skills for success: Personal development and employability. Macmillan
International Higher Education.
Thompson, N., 2015. People skills. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Loehr, J., Loehr, J.E. and Schwartz, T., 2005. The power of full engagement: Managing energy,
not time, is the key to high performance and personal renewal. Simon and Schuster.
Hargrove, M.B., 2013. Hargrove, MB, Nelson, DL, and Cooper, CL (2013) Generating eustress
by challenging employees: Helping people savor their work. Organizational Dynamics.
42, 61-69. Organizational Dynamics, 42, pp.61-69.
Gardiner, J and Ba ref oo t, B., 2019. Step by step – Chapter 12 p . 19 1 -20 2