The Need to Rein in Stress at the WorkplaceIntroduction

Human capital is a key component in the organizational success equation. For this reason, an organization ought to adopt the appropriate strategies with an aim of protecting and promoting this key resource. Organizations that are able to effectively manage their human capital are likely to outperform their peers in the marketplace because organizational culture as well as the skills and competencies of employees cannot be replicated by competitors. When employees have mental or emotional concerns that prevent them from performing at optimum, organizational performance suffers as the said employees are likely to be less focused and motivated. Towards this end, employees should be taught stress management strategies and techniques so that they can be able to better perform optimally at the workplace; as this would further enhance the performance of the organization.

Discussion

There are many strategies that organizations could adopt in an attempt to manage workplace stress. To begin with, they could facilitate and promote employee exercise programs. This could be done by enrolling employees in gyms or having an in-house gym at work that employees can use after work hours for free. According to Alters and Schiff (2011), “physical activity can metabolize the extra energy released during the stress response, lessening the impact of stress on the...

Secondly, an organization could have in place what are commonly referred to as Employee Assistance Programs (Leong, 2008). Such programs “may offer different types of educational programs to help employees cope with work stress” (Leong, 2008, p. 1685).
When employees are able to better handle stress, the organization could benefit in a variety of ways. To begin with, reduced employee stress enhances the morale of employees, thereby making employees more motivated and further enhancing their productivity (Cummings and Worley, 2009). As the authors further point out, when employees are stressed, their moods are impacted upon. This could be manifested via constant procrastination and poor service to customers. All these have a negative impact on the overall performance of the company. For instance, when employees are absent minded and routinely procrastinate, they lose focus of the task at hand. Similarly, when customers are treated badly by a stressed employee, they could migrate to a competitor.

Secondly, employee stress leads to increased workplace conflicts. Stress, according to Alters and Schiff (2011), leads to withdrawal from social engagements – with individuals opting to keep to themselves. In an organizational setting, things move forward by way of constant interactions. When an employee is stressed, any contact between the said employee and his peers is likely…