Workplace Stress Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : Psychology

Executive summary of Workplace Stress

This report illustrated the work place related stress and stress response. The report has highlighted the cause-and-effect relationship for the organization's stability of employees. The leadership style adopted in situational rating to stress, and coping strategies adopted by an individual.It addressed the importance of stress response and the impact of work stress on the health of an individual that causes emotional and effective way to cope against it through change in lifestyle.

Table of Contents

Introduction 

Stressor and its impact on work and life

Analysis of leadership style, impact of stress on work and life

Critical review

Conclusion

Reference list

Introduction to Workplace Stress

Stress is something that causes strain relating to an objective or a situation. Stress influences the behavior and actions of an individual. Employers have to look for the well-being of the employee. Stress can be caused because of a reaction to a threat to our wellbeing. Poor development and lack of job security and job satisfaction are some factors relating to workplace stress (Dipboye, 2018). The report reflects the personal experience of stress at the workplace and its impact on work and health.

Stressor and Its Impact on Work and Life

Work-related stress affected daily work decision enabling activities.My interest in business and solving complex problems helped me to develop interest in investment banking as a career choice. I had joined Maryland as an analyst. As a fresh graduate, I was driven to work in the investment functional team role. The analyst role included the preparation of financial models, presentations, relationship building with the client. Gradually organizational and workload led to Work-life balance being disordered. The time demand stress increased due to rushed deadlines and fast-paced environments with extra work assigned. The initial months of the work only motivated for better results, functionality at Maryland but soon turn into stress and anxiety. The demanding hours had taken a toll on the heath with thoughts pre-occupied with work. The long work hours led to frequent conflict with the manger, with an uncontrollable aspect of blame relating to delay or work assignment quality. The motivation to work is primarily to attain reward, recognition by developed of “soft skills” (Dipboye, 2018).

Figure -1- Cognitive Response

The anticipated stress from hard-pressed projects made work difficult. The organization is culture driven by a partner deciding as a prime authority on project. The increased responsibility of work to delivered assignments relating to senior clients created stressful situations. Work assessment score of my performance for technology project showed great revenue for our client, this made me a contender for Spot awards for early starter weekly program. The internal team recognized others for recognition, creating disappointment with bias and increased burden and displeasure. An engaging and peaceful environment is essential for creating collaboration and toxic culture unleashes anger and increased conflict. The work accountability is determined by the time spent in the organization (Green, 2018). The interpersonal conflict led to dysfunctional communication, ill feelings, and displeasure intensity towards co-worker. One particular incident with Chaste my colleague at Maryland revolved around conflict and disagreement, we were assigned budgetary preparation. Chaste was a senior employer with 1.5 years of experience with our investment functional support team.

Chaste became dismissive of my suggestions for yield matrix and formulation of models to design presentations for a client. The situation led to discontinued communication between us and was situational stress to encounter him during follow-up meetings. My primary focus was always completing work, I never interacted much with the team, other than discussing project inputs for team presentation and research work. The frustration due to workload was immense during our quarterly projects deadline but I was apprehensive to speak to HR team and also to my team member .My team members have their own group and neglected my presence at team lunch at office and small talk during tea breaks. I felt sidelined due to their behavior and gossips. The parallel team working with us offered a project at the outbound location, the partner at the firm passed the opportunity to another member.

The lack of recognition again created a situation of anticipation stress as I was threatened with major leads being transferred or moved to other teammates. The adaptiveness in organization is experience and mentoring curated by the supervisor (HBR, 2016). The anxiety due to rejection was creating a mental block on being overlooked in projects, mentor discussion with a supervisor were rare and were only centered with new targets and projects assigned. The query was addressed specifically to work design and additional time off was not given due to tight schedules. Re-shuffling of schedules created the same window of multiple projects with a little measure to reduce timelines and no individual autonomy of project supervision were given to team member. The major causes of time demand were central to the dynamic role at Maryland, it was creating difficulty in adjusting to global clients and creating output and availability for work outflow designed by the weekly schedule team at Maryland

Undirected work, denial, and reformulation of work cause long term impacts that drive dissatisfaction towards work (Forbes, 2019). The mobility of work at Maryland had led to work-life balance disrupted. Work stress mounted with projects autonomy being given to partners had a cognitive effect on not being able to cope with the workload. These stressors related to time constraints and situational stress. I experienced increase in stress primarily with lack of flexibility with stress of workload, conflict with authority .The role conflictfurther created communication barrier and decline in productivity. Burnout can be physical and emotional too (HBR, 2016).The long works caused burnout. The work schedule without proper break impacted clarity of thoughts and caused emotional burnout.

Analysis of Leadership Style, Impact of Stress on Work and Life

Figure -2-Reactions in stressful situation

I consider that stress affects all the aspects of work life. A coherent environment is essential for managing the company through personal development and functional response (Katic, 2019). I learned that physical stress situations occurred due to work stress and project deadline in Maryland. Physical emotional, cognitive and behavioral aspects develop reactions centered with a huge impact on mental and physical wellbeing.

The workload creates frustration with long assignments that led to a submissive cycle of attention span declining. The unrest in mind cause a rapid heart rate and nausea due to long work hours and client support after work hours. Active working hours led to vulnerable situations with the physical impact .I experienced exhaustiveness causing further emotional unrest with lack of organizational support. The effects of stress are on the physical body as well as mental health if it is not addressed at one stage. Self-doubt is created with any failure related to work, anxiety as I was unable to coordinate well to successfully execute few projects and it caused the revocation of assignments to be assigned for high-value client deals. These overpowering thoughts were slowly created a chain of events relating to miss management and displeasure by quality of work assigned.

The change in behavior due to the constant burden of work created a depressive mood at home. All situations physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral are interrelated. The unrest primarily by work design created authority conflict with a supervisor. Direct reporting with performance checks shows the likeability of stress and strained relationship (Crane, 2017). The annual program for lateral positions was ranked on projects granted every month for the entry-level analyst, the additional grants allocated for extra credits to get higher position grade created tension, leading to loss of appetite and sleep disorder. Preparation of proposal, deal insights, publication, and review process was taxing on physical health as most of the work required round the clock availability. These reactions to stress were automatic with instant reactions to the situations as they occurred during my tenure. The effect on health due to lack of sleep with growing irritable behavior led to downswing in mood, it was the tipping point. Productivity and enthusiasm for taking initiatives and working for deals, research made me tired, which created a pessimistic outlook. My racing thoughts created negative outlook with failed outcomes, poor performance on work environment.

Our lifestyle, behavior is determined by social, interpersonal interactions. I have started exercise regime which is an important part of my daily routine to increase strength and enduring healthy lifestyle. Sustainability of resource is dependent on the stress experienced by professional (Katic, 2019).Loneliness as a measure to cope with my academics, work was a solitude to engage and reflect on my own personality. I use a do list to curate my thoughts for addressing and properly responding to all situations. Time management and early preparedness helped me to define timelines to restrict overburden. The timelines in work are crucial that has led to reduced weight, due to lack of physical activities and primarily spending time at work. Depressive mood with fall out of any project deadline and rejection created a pattern of negative thoughts that reduced efficiency in the long run and caused irritability.

Majority of the time is spent at work, cordial relationship at work was difficult to maintain. Cutthroat competition at the firm created a differentiated environment with only a few with genuine thoughts and extensive work experience at work to guide me. Durability and creating self-space helped in understanding work dynamics and pointers for maintaining work-life balance. As an individual, relationship centered on positivity only are sustained and cognitive thoughts in creating, planning, and anticipating future development creates a web chain of stressful events due to lack of clarity of thoughts. Management discussion and team bonding is not old school, it is team bonding and culture (Green, 2018).The effects on memory with pressure reclined to time demands, and workplace stress.

Leadership style is a management attributes to assist the team, a role in achieving common objectives. The style of leadership is determined for task adherence for orientation and assistance to develop professional relationship (Schein, 2018). Participating and collaboration are common in the workplace. I had worked with a team of 10 with diverse backgrounds and attitudes. Idea origination, development of task requires deep reading and focus this leads to mistakes, poor quality of work due to stress. Displeasure and authoritarian behavior are developed with tight deadlines. Avoiding as a style under stress shows judgment by avoiding sensitive topics (Dewe, 2017). The task allocation with other team members raised conflict, divergent interest, in weekly meetings .I didn’t give immediate feedback to maintain a cordial relationship with teamand prevent damage to the team on work-related grounds. Avoidance may work early but builds anxiety. My work environments were similar it led to panic with no reach out for insight due to organization structure and avoidance style. Taking small steps towards strengthening behavior in closed forums decompose discomfort.

Critical Review of Workplace Stress

The stressor relates to two sets of an issue causing workplace stress. The stressor which I experienced involved time demand, anticipation, and a few degrees of situational stress .The external factor that affects stress relates to the use of ICT. It enables integrated workflow and engagement of the employee. Employee availability and supervisor's administration grow stronger because of ICT. Surplus work was given which lead to work-life balance and affected my wellbeing. ICT enables integrated workflow and engagement of the workforce. Lack of autonomy will lead to emotional strain. ICT is an integrated tool for connectivity that is increasing mobility and enhanced work after working hours. Constantly being on screen and use of digital technology has affected the sleep cycle (Deloitte, 2018). Personalized chatbots and data stream help in assessing information at a quick speed. Practicing communication norms and de attaching from work on non-work hour days is vital. ICT ‘s positive and negative impact are at equal ratio.AI application to advocate good practices by the organization is helpful but constant video calls ,interface shift to online medium creates a disconnect in the team and communication to discuss and asses work.

The schedule and current pace have increased the risk of burnout. Burnout causes physical and mental exhaustion relating to work stress with longitudinal impact (HBR, 2019). One has to examine instances whether the condition relating to work creates an imbalance in work life, whether the work hours are drifting individual to take work after office hours. The lack of interest in playing golf and swimming which used to interest me had become distant which showed signs of burnout. Taking short breaks during the day and dedicating an hour to leisure activities help in creating professional boundaries.

Leadership behavior is necessary to hold the team together. Temper issues and rash behavior with the team will break bonding. Due to stressful situations, my leadership style turns to avoidance. To avoid conflict of opinion and formal relationship avoidance is cemented with fellow employee at work. Stress at the workplace if unattended intensifies depressive mood and mental health deterioration, which adversely affects work productivity and individual ownership of the individual (Schein, 2018). The social synergy of an organization is adversely impacted, which results in increase in absenteeism and fall in employee productivity, aggressive behavior, and create a hostile environment.

Coping is the process to deal with problems associated with life. Humble and open culture intimately ties inter-personal relationship (Schein .2018). The work environment in Maryland and exhaustive hours have led to a great level of stress. Maintaining a positive demeanor through acceptance is the initial step at coping with the same. I have started writing a diary which helps me to declutter. As an individual, identification of prime stressor and developing a support system for negative thoughts is critical. Indulging in activities for relaxation with external measures that include meditation, exercise, time management, team building, and developing a flexible lifestyle have reduced anxiety and improved focus towards work.

Conclusion on Workplace Stress

From the above discussion and insights, it can be concluded that the stress and its response are dependent on the individual's interaction and situation. Leadership style and behavior are necessary to hold the team together to manage interpersonal harmony in the organization. The response to stress that leads to emotional unrest and lack of organizational support shows that physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral situations are interrelated .The schedule and current pace have increased the risk of burnout. This change in behavior and increase use of ICT is impacting work-life balance. The need for coping with positive demeanor and response are determinant to stress.

Reference List for Workplace Stress

Crane, F.M. (2017).Managing for Resilience: A Practical guide for employee and organizational performance. New York, US: Taylor and Francis

Deloitte. (2018). Designing work environment for digital wellbeing. Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/behavioral-economics/negative-impact-technology-business.html

Dewe, P. (2017). Work stress and coping–Forces of change and challenges. London, U.K: Sage publication

Dipboye, L. R. (2018). The emerald review of industrial and organizational psychology. WA, UK: Emerald Publishing.

Farrell, A.P. (2019). Sleep, insomnia, stress: What you don’t know can hurt you. Tenafly, NJ: Farrell LLC

Forbes. (2019). Workplace trend: Stress is on the rise. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2019/01/09/workplace-trend-stress-is-on-the-rise/#2fc374046e1b.

Green, A. (2018). Ask a manager: How to navigate clueless colleagues, lunch stealing bosses, and other tricky situations at work. London, UK:Piatkus publication

HBR. (2016). Steps to take when you have started to feel burnout. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/06/steps-to-take-when-youre-starting-to-feel-burned-out

Schein, H.E. Schein, A.P. (2018).Humble leadership: The power of relationships, openness, and trust. Oakland, CA: Berrett Koehler Publishers

Katic, I. Knezevic, T. Berber, N. Ivanesic, A. Leber, M. (2019). The impact of stress on life, working, management styles: How to make the organization healthier? Sustainability Open Journal, 11, 4026

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