Factors that may lead to work-related stress are demands, support, control, role, relationships and change. If not managed correctly, you’ll find yourself really in at the end of your wits.
Have control over your work
Having control over your work can reduce the impact of high job demands. A sustained high level of support obtained from your work associates and from your manager are helpful in reducing the impact of high work demands and low control.
Accept changes
Old habits are not permanent, flexibility to adapt to changes is important to minimize stress at work.
Change in a work environment including organizational change such as changes in team members and line members would add worry to you. This means having to deal with a new person or persons whose style is unknown, eventually affecting continuity or smoothness of workflow. Non-familiarity with the style of your boss and coworkers can affect the efficiency of your work and add stress in a general manner.
Be clear about your responsibilities
Organization role is considered one of the work stress factors and involve issues such as conflicting job demands, unclear job descriptions and having too much responsibility for a work. Small firms usually hire an individual for a specific job or role.
However, as the employee gets used to that certain job, his or her employers assign other responsibilities which were not delegated before. This is a burden to an employee which adds up to a lot of stress especially when salary remains the same. Additional responsibilities equate to longer working hours due to heavy workload.
Learn interpersonal skills
Working in an organization needs skills in interpersonal relations. Certain types of abuses can come up when dealing with different people. Your patience and self-control will be tested; anger and misunderstanding will be inevitable.
Bullying and harassment from clients, higher management and co-workers of same level are considered to be the most significant work stress contributors. Bullying can create a hostile work environment which can affect your work ethics as well as your productive contribution to organization.
Women are prone to sexual harassment especially those working in a predominantly male industry like in a construction site. Sexual harassment can also lead to a dip in performance of work.
Be competitive
Job insecurity and the threat of job loss due to redundancy are work stress factors that workers cannot ignore. This is true especially for those with families and at an age range, usually over 35 years old, where it is difficult to find another job.
How can you avoid this? You must be competitive. Identify your strength and build that up so that you are a key person in your company that they will depend on. This does not mean that you are indispensable, but that you are needed to ensure smooth company operation.
Cost cutting measures are a usual thing that happen when the company wants to survive the effects of an economic slowdown in a certain nation that is why measures such as cutting down in manpower seems to be a priority when reducing costs.
However, the fact that employees would be paid for their tenure when their positions are redundant give some hope for the workers and eventually slow down buildup of stress in their minds.