Organizational stress is a relatively recent notion that has appeared with the fast growing of enterprises and increasing demands to its workers. The researches taken in the 1990s showed a rapid growth of people who complain about being unwell at work. It is usually caused by those stressors that emerged due to the structural changes in organization, job redesign, and shifts in social system of the organization (Elkin, Rosch, 1990, pp. 739-754). All these, and many other, factors influence negatively the worker’s usual psychological state, as they have to adapt to the new conditions, demands and reconstruct their usual time table and the organizational system of doing work.
The results of such a stress may be quite negative and usually lead to burnout and performance problems at work, lead to lack of trust to the colleagues and increase absenteeism. More and more workers prefer looking for another job, thus, shifting their duties and responsibilities on those who are left. So, the last get extra work, being overloaded and unsatisfied, as they are usually not paid for this. Furthermore, such unfavorable conditions have already been resulting in the drop of productivity, enthusiasm, ambitions burnout.
Rapid changes of the organizational structure, new demands concerning communication, setting up higher standards of work and other factors usually cause the rejection to accept. In fact, in A Survival Guide to the Stress of Organizational Change, the authors state, “resisting change is one of the most common causes of stress on the job” (Pritchett and Pound, 1995). So, any worker tries to protect himself from the new demands, refusing to adapt to them, making the process of changes even harder. One more consequence is the uncertainty of the company’s future. Throughout the changes many workers stop seeing themselves within the company, as they do not know what novelty to expect. They fail to control their work which makes them even more anxious.
Nowadays the workers also face the new changing demands to their work. With the technological process, they have to learn using new programs, exclude face-to-face and involve more of online communication. All this requires new skills and much devotion. Such a rearrangement of tasks and responsibilities contribute to stress, feeling of ambiguity and uncertainty.
The leadership challenges are experienced by the workers mostly negatively. The majority of leaders tend to increase their influence and build model of communication and work within the team. However, only few understand that they have to create a vision themselves, set up a good example, build a bond between the workers, communicate their opinions directly and honestly. As noted by Kouzes and Posner in The Leadership Challenge, “Leaders don’t command and control; they serve and support” (Kouzes, Posner, 1995). This means that leaders do not try to show their status, position and influence, they create a team, become a part of it.
Another reason for organizational stress is that many workers have lately claimed that they have no life outside their offices. With the increase of demands, growing popularity of 24/7 type of jobs, it has become extremely difficult to divide work and personal time correctly. Fast development of technologies has set new tasks to employees, more and more performing their work at home, answering e-mails and phone calls. The line between the work and home rest has become rather vague. What is the most unpleasant for the majority of the workers is that their manager can reach them any time he needs help. As the result, many simply burn out at work, for they have no profound rest, lose their creativity, energy and enthusiasm.
Some of the consequences of organizational stress have been already mentioned, i.e. burnout at work, loss of productivity, uncertainty and negativism at work. The enterprises face inconveniences as well: turnover of employees is one of the most negative and costly consequences. While experiencing any stressful organizational changes the employees find it easier to switch a job rather than adapt to new realities. In such a way, they escape from new responsibilities. Contemporary jobs always require a high level of commitment, for which not all workers are ready. And of course, any stress is unnatural to the human’s organism and causes a lot of health issues, like chronical headaches and other illnesses, depression and frustration, weakening of the immune system, etc.
This issue has still remains very urgent and despite of being discussed many times, the employees still experience great stress at work. To investigate this problem in a more profound way, we shall use a survey research strategy. Survey research is a specific type of field study that involves the collection of data from a sample of elements (e.g., adult women) drawn from a well-defined population (e.g., all adult women living in the United States) through the use of a questionnaire (Babbie, 1990). Survey is able to include as many participants as needed, and, hence, develop an objective research with qualitative data. The survey will be anonymous which will make the questionnaire trustworthy and allow the participants to answer the questions honestly, without fearing to express their opinion.
Moreover, this research strategy has already proved its flexibility. In a very short period of time, the participants will be able to answer a big amount of questions which will give a full picture of the actual issue. Another advantage is that it can be carried out in the most convenient way: being it an online or paper questionnaire. The survey data are easy to be gathered, calculated and analyzed.
The hypothesis of our research is that the stressors at work include changes in the organizational structure, rapid technological development and growing demand to employees and serious mistakes in leadership management.
Data collection will be provided with a questionnaire. This research instrument is used in normative surveys and consists of a deliberately designed set of questions. The participants are to answer the given questions, and so, to supply the research with all necessary information. We will you a structured or closed form of questionnaire, i.e. the participants are offered multiple choice questions and have to pick only one answer that suits them most of all.
Questionnaires are easy to be carried out, they help to collect big amount of information, involve many people and be performed in any suitable way. Moreover, it is considered to be a kind of interview, however, with more advantages. Not all people are ready to communicate about their problems in a face-to-face conversation. When the participants feel pressed and inconvenient, it is almost impossible to get valid results and answers. On the contrary, the questionnaire takes little time and people may write their opinions freely, as the survey will be anonymous.
1. Do the participants of the survey think that they experience stress at work?
2. What factors do contribute to the stress at work most of all?
3. Do the employees notice any mistakes in the management policy of the company that make them feel uncomfortable at work?
4. Do the employees have a strict line between their job and personal life?
5. How do they try to eliminate stress at work themselves?
References:
Babbie, E. R. (1990). Survey research methods. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
Elkin, A., Rosch, P. (1990). Promoting Mental Health at Work. Occupational Medicine State of the Art Review, 5 (4)
Kouzes, J., Posner, B. (1997). The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Pritchett, P., Pound R. (1995). A Survival Guide to the Stress of Organizational Change. Dallas: Pritchett and Associates, Inc.
