A Review On Job Stress
A Review on Job Stress
The workplace should not only be a place for profit. It is where we build friendship and relationships. It is where we find self-fulfillment and personal growth. Ideally, we view our career as a catalyst for self-actualization, and that experience and knowledge that we acquire from the workplace will eventually lead us to our personal objective.
However, with the emergence of a high technological society and demanding lifestyles, people had been in constant struggle. Societal demands and pressures, company expectation, feeling of incompetence, "job politics", unsatisfactory working condition, noise pollution, are some of the factors that exacerbated physical and emotional stress. Employee job satisfaction and ultimately productivity will be greatly affected. This could also lead to emotional breakdown and even injury when unacknowledged and neglected. It is therefore important that company provide a program designed to prevent job stress through problem identification, employee assistance program, counseling, and follow-up and, if necessary, implement organizational change.
Job stress can be defined as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker.1 Excessive absenteeism, migraines, unusual tiredness, personal conflicts, and decreased productivity are some of the more obvious symptoms of stress. Feeling of frustrations, hopelessness, and anger that follows usually triggers emotional breakdown and more serious physical symptoms such as heart problems, etc.
Acknowledged as the "20th Century Disease", job stress accounts for $200-300 billion a year in the American workplace2. Furthermore, more than one third of America's work force finds it increasingly difficult to balance work and family life and to cope with pressures on the job (Walker, 1991). Moreover, O'Hara explained that technological inventions have...
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