Stress and Wellbeing in The Workplace (GC0611)
1.0 Introduction
Stress and wellbeing at a workplace are the key factors that affect the performance as well as the motivational level of the employees in different ways. According to Bhui et al. (2012), the term ‘stress’ is an opposing reaction that the people have while they observe that they are not capable to deal with the demands that are retained on them. James et al. (2011) said that an adverse system to burnout considers how the experiences of work may develop the experiences or wellbeing of the people at the workplace. Knight et al. (2017) stated that the well-being of the employees in a workplace can cause by different factors including good management behavior, a better workplace environment, effective reward and incentives, and others.
The case scenario for this assignment is on a company named Powerline. Powerline is a company that specializes in the maintenance, construction, management, and operation of the overhead power lines as well as associated with different projects to the electricity providers of the UK and Irish. The maintenance department of this company maintains and repairs the overhead power lines that making sure the power faults to the customers. The main people of Powerline are Technical Engineers (TE) and under each of the TE, about 8 to 15 technicians work where their works are looked after by Maintenance Department Manager.
This case study has a relationship with this assignment topic named stress and wellbeing at the workplace because the people of Powerline such as technicians and TE faced different stresses in terms of organizational restructure, workload, and work pressure. Then, the people of Powerline are also gained different wellbeing factors from their workplace that motivate them to their work such as reward (£6k pay increases), promotion from technician to Technical Engineer (TE) and people management course offered by L&D department of Powerline that helps the people to gain Level 3 certificate in management.
2.0 Stress and wellbeing in Powerline
Willert et al. (2011) disclosed that stress can be defined as the cause (as the cause of bad feeling), process, and outcome (by that the work pressure results in the strain). The causes of stress can be categorized into two parts such as the psychosocial work environment and the physical work environment. The psychosocial work environment includes workload, work environment, work pattern, the relationship between the managers and the staff, organizational change, interpersonal conflict, and poor supervision that cause stress in the workplace (Bhui et al., 2012). Then, the physical work environment includes noise, temperature, light, ergonomic design, and vibration that cause stress in the workplace.
Richardson and Rothstein (2008) said that workplace stressors can impact the behavioral, psychological (for example, burnout, strain) and physiological problems (for example, arteriosclerosis) of the employees. On the other hand, well-being in the workplace means a positive work-related situation that is mainly characterized by dedication, absorption, and vigor. According to Schaufeli et al. (2012), the well-being of the employees in the workplace is described by the five key factors such as focus, urgency, adaptability, intensity, and personal initiative.
According to the case study, Powerline is a company that specializes in maintenance, construction, management and operation of the overhead power lines as well as associated with different projects to the electricity providers of UK and Irish. The main people of Powerline are Technical Engineers (TE) and under each of the TE, about 8 to 15 technicians work where their works are looked after by Maintenance Department Manager. According to the organizational restructure of Powerline, Technical Engineers (TE) can make effective decisions and share their opinions freely with Maintenance Department Manager easily which makes the TEs more reliable, motivated and active in the workplace.
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In addition, the normal staff such as technicians cannot share their opinions, decisions freely with the manager (there is a communication gap) that makes them demotivated and feel stressed in the workplace. On the other hand, this organization gives rewards and promotion to the staffs from technicians to Technical Engineer (TE) by increasing pay to £6k. However, a number of staff were reluctant and unhappy because there is no option to do other works that create stress among them. This results in well-being for the employees in the workplace. Moreover, Powerline’s L&D department supports its people to gain the Level 3 certificate in management for the wellbeing of the staff. However, the workload can make communication gaps between the staff, and also create conflict and tension, the physical problems such as shortness of breath that ultimately results in stress.
3.0 Conclusion
It can be concluded that Powerline company’s technicians and Technical Engineers (TE) faced different problems that result in stress and also engaged with different factors that bring wellbeing for them. Thus, it is essential for Powerline to reduce and manage the workplace stressors to provide a stress-free environment for the employees. Cox et al. (2007) stated that this company can focus on primary intervention, secondary intervention, and tertiary intervention to reduce and manage workplace stress. In terms of primary intervention, this company should eliminate different stressors from the workplace environment.
In terms of secondary intervention, this company should focus on its employees and also help them to respond to the stress effectively through mediation or time management (Cox et al., 2007). In terms of tertiary intervention, this company should focus on different organizational programs such as offering structured support that helps the employees to recover from the stress. For example, Powerline should provide an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) to its employees to reduce and manage stress. The professionals (such as counselors) of EAP perceive the employees to be underutilized. In addition, this company should use the combination of these three interventions which are known as the multiple approaches to reduce or manage stress in its work environment.
On the other hand, to sustain well-being and reduce stress in/from the workplace, Powerline should focus on four engagement interventions such as personal resource building, job resource building, leadership training, and health promotion (Christian et al., 2011). The personal resource building should help the employees of this organization to develop their self-efficacy, optimism, and resilience. Then, job resource building should provide autonomy in the workplace. After that, the leadership training should support the employees to improve their knowledge, skills, and ability to manage stress and the health promotion system should encourage the employees to sustain a healthy lifestyle and reduce stress from their work. Thus, these ways and processes can help Powerline to maintain and reduce stress from the work environment that helps the employees to feel free from stress, also focus on different employee well-being factors that support the employees to sustain a healthy life in the workplace.
References
Bhui, K., Dinos, S., Stansfeld, S., and White, P. (2012) A Synthesis of the Evidence for Managing Stress at Work, Journal Of Environmental & Public Health, Vol. 12 (3), P. 1-21.
James, J. B., McKechnie, S., and Swanberg, J. (2011) Predicting employee engagement in an age-diverse retail workforce, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 32(2), P. 173-196.
Knight, C., Patterson, M. and Dawson, J. (2017) Building works engagement, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 38 (1), P. 792–812.
Willert, M., Thulstrup, A. and Bonde, J. (2011) Effects of a stress-management intervention on absenteeism, Scandinavian Journal Of Work, Vol. 37 (3), P. 186-19
Richardson, K.M. and Rothstein, H.R. (2008) Effects of occupational stress management intervention programs: A meta-analysis, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol. 13(1), P. 69 –93.
Cox, T., Karanika, M., Griffiths, A. and Houdmont, J. (2007) Evaluating organizational-level work stress interventions: Beyond traditional methods, Work & Stress, Vol. 21 (4), P. 348-362.
Christian, M., Garza, A., and Slaughter, J. (2011) Work Engagement: A quantitative review and test of its relations with task and contextual performance, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 64 (1), P. 89-136.
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