It is the recommendation of a number of researches that there be a combination of organizational change plus individual management or situational stress management approach in the prevention of stress at workplace.
Stress management targets:
I. Recognizing employees for their good performance at work.
II. Increase opportunities for career development.
III. To build an organizational culture which greatly values the individual worker.
IV. Ensure that the workload is in line with workers’ capabilities and resources.
V. Design jobs is such manner that they offer meaning, simulation, along with opportunities for the workers to utilize their skills.
VI. Clearly define the roles of workers and their respective responsibilities.
VII. Provide workers with opportunities to take part in decision-making and actions pertaining to their jobs.
VIII. Improve communications- reduce uncertainty about career development and future employment prospects.
IX. Provide opportunities for social interaction among workers.
X. Establish work schedules that are compatible with demands and responsibilities outside the job.
In line with the above stated, it can be particularly useful to have workers and managers work together in task-oriented problem-solving and brainstorming sessions. Such participation is effective and works by making use of the direct experience and differences in perspective of workers and managers.
When creating such work groups, employers must make sure that they comply with current labour laws. Employers should seek legal assistance if they are unsure of their responsibilities or obligations (Greenfield, 2009).
Stress prevention
The best method to explore the scope and source of a suspected stress problem in an organization depends partly on the size of the organization and the available resources. Group discussions among managers, labour representatives, and employees can provide rich sources of information. Discussions may be all that is needed to find and fix problems in a small company. In a larger organization, such discussions can be used to help design formal surveys for gathering input about stressful job conditions from large number of employees.
Regardless of the method used to collect data, information should be obtained about employee perceptions of their job conditions and perceived levels of stress, health, and satisfaction (Diamond, 2005). The list of job conditions that may lead to stress and warning signs and effects of stress provided starting points for deciding what information to collect.
Objective measures that can also be examined so as to gauge the very presence and length of the job stress include absenteeism, turnover rates, illness incidents as well as performance problems. Nonetheless, these measures only represent rough indicators of the job stress.
Questions relating to the location of the stress question in question along with the job situations they are responsible for can be gotten from summarized and analyzed data obtained from discussions, surveys, as well as other sources.
In summary:
• organize for group discussions with your employees
• Design an employee survey.
• Measure employee perceptions of job conditions, stress, health, and satisfaction
• Collect objective data
• Analyze data to identify problem locations and stressful job conditions.
In conclusion, once the sources of stress at work have been identified and the scope of the problem is understood, the stage is set for design and implementation of an intervention strategy.
In smaller organizations, helpful ideas for prevention can be achieved with the same informal discussions which aided in the identification of stress problems. On the other hand, more formal process may be required in large organizations. On a more frequent basis, a team is asked to come up with recommendations relating on the analysis of data as well as consultation with external experts.
Other problems like hostile work environment, could prove pervasive in the company and thus need some company-wide interventions. Furthermore, some problems including excessive workload can prevail only in departments calling for more narrow solutions. Such solutions may include redesigning of the way a given task is handled. However, other problems could prove specific to particular employees and thus highly resistant to all sorts of organizational change (Davis, 2010). This in effect demands for stress management or employee assistance interventions. There are interventions that can be implemented quickly (improved communication and individual stress management training, for instance), while others may need much time to be implemented. This latter one could include redesigning of a manufacturing process.
It is important to have the employees informed about planned actions as well as their planned time. To this you hold a kick-off event which may include an all hands meeting. In summary:
Target the source of stress for change
indicate and the prioritize the desired intervention strategies.
Communicate targeted interventions to the employees.
Implement interventions
Furthermore, evaluation is a central step in the whole intervention process because it helps in the determination of whether the intervention adopted is resulting in the desired effects and in the direction needed. To this effect, there is need to establish time frames for the evaluation of interventions.
It therefore goes that certain issues are significant to fruitful stress management in the work place, making it necessary for employees to bear a clear idea pertaining your involvement in a stress management program. To do this, a stress audit will will come in handy in highlighting the problematic areas along with the likely ways to overcome these problems. Nonetheless, it is would help a lot to identify clear goals and objectives. Thus there is need to ensure that you identify the real goal and then work smartly towards it as opposed to living in the sheer hope that a program will by itself work through hitting something.
