Effects of Stress on Workers Performance in London

Answer

• Effects of Stress on Workers Performance in London

  Table of Contents

  1       Introduction. 2

  1.1        Background of the Study. 2

  1.2        Objectives. 3

  1.3        Research Questions. 3

  2       Literature Review.. 4

  2.1        Definition and Types of Stress. 4

  2.2        Causes of Stress. 5

  2.3        Stress and Job Performance. 7

  2.4        Stress Management 10

  3       Methodology. 11

  3.1        Research Design. 11

  3.2        Sample and Sampling Technique. 12

  3.3        Data and Data Collection. 12

  3.4        Data Analysis. 13

  3.5        Ethical Considerations. 13

  3.6        Limitations of the Study. 14

  3.7        Project Plan. 14

  References. 15

   

   

   

  Introduction

  Background of the Study

  Presently, stress has become a global phenomenon, occurring in different forms in various workplaces. The scenario is associated with the fact that current work life is characterized with longer working hours since the rising levels of responsibilities that require them to more strenuously apply themselves to meet the rising expectations regarding work place (George & K. A., 2015). According to Daniel (2015), stress is defined as the adverse physical and psychological reactions that happen in a person as a result of their inability to deal with the demands that are being made on them. Stress often starts when people are placed in work environments that are incompatible with their temperament or work style. It gets worse when people find out that they can exercise or have little control over their work environments. Many companies across the world are experiencing an alarming rise in the negative impacts of stress upon their employees’ productivity. For instance, according to a study that was conducted by the American Academy of Family Physicians revealed that nearly 75% of the visits to family physicians were the results of stress-linked signs and symptoms. Haque and Aston (2016) identified the following as the causes of stress among employees: unclear job descriptions, poor time management, feelings of insecurity and  inadequacy, inability to have things done, bad/poor personal relationships, lack/poor communication, complexity and quality of tasks. On the same trajectory, Deng et al. (2019) established that stress-associated illnesses are the leading causes of low levels of productivity in workplaces, pointing out that immense pressure at workplaces often yield stress.

  According to Daniel (2015), low productivity among employees is often caused by machine breakdowns, company, non-established standards of performance, lack of motivation and planning, poor/change of work environment and atmosphere, insufficient communication at many organizational levels, non-identification  with the goals of a company. Evidently, it is crucial to identify and address job stress or occupational stress since they badly affect employees’ psychological and mental health. Apart from being of great concern to workers, stress is of clinical concern to psychologists and employers because the high growth rate in ill-health among employees as a result of long hours of working to help their companies remain competitive in the business landscape, pressure of high quality innovation, and increase in the speed of doing business is alarming (George & K. A., 2015).  Haque and Aston (2016) add that stress continues to endanger organizations’ health. Unhealthy organizational atmospheres minimize employees’ involvement, thus, negatively affecting the performance of people at corporate and individual levels (Chao et al., 2015). Seeing that stress negatively influences the productivity of employees, there is a need to examine the factors that cause it and how they can be addressed so that employees’ work performance can be bettered. It is against this backdrop that this paper will explore the effects of stress upon workers’ performance in London. 

  Objectives

  The main objective of this study will be to determine the effects of stress upon workers’ performance in London. Other objectives will include:

  1. The type of work-related stress on employees
  2. Causes of stress on employees
  3. How managers can support their stressed employees
  4. The role played by human resource in resolving their employees’ stress-related matters

  Research Questions

  The questions that this study will seek to answer are as follows:

  1. What are the effects of stress upon employees’ performance in London?
  2. What are the types of work-related stress upon employees in London?
  • What factors cause stress on employees in London?
  1. How do managers support their stressed employees in London?
  2. What are the roles played by human resource in resolving their employees’ stress-related matters?

  Literature Review

  Definition and Types of Stress

  In the present world, it is quite impossible to live without stress. Stress has been variedly defined. Nonetheless, the widely used definition is that stress refers to the response of a person to the outcomes of external surrounding conditions that put excessive behavioural, psychological, and psychological pressure upon the individual (George & K. A., 2015).

  There are three main types of stress: acute, traumatic, and chronic types. Deng et al. (2019) explain that chronic stress is a kind of stress that happens apparently for an intermediate span of time that wears down an individual daily with no perceptible sign of escape. It is caused by long term exposure to stress factors, like unhappy marriage, unwarranted job or career, traumatic experience, relationship conflicts, and stress of poverty, among other stressors. These situations appear to be unending and the accrued stress that comes from exposure to the stressors can be life-threatening, tearing a person emotionally and health-wise, thus, resulting to breakdown and subsequently death (Haque & Aston, 2016).

  Second is traumatic stress is a type of stress that results from catastrophic experiences or events, like a natural disaster and an accident, among others (George & K. A., 2015). People who undergo this kind of stress start recovering soon after such shocks. However, in some individuals, their bodies do not easily get back to normal and life also does not get back to normal. Third is acute stress. Acute stress is the most recognizable and common kind of stress. Acute stress is usually short-lived and does result in any permanent injury on an individual’s body. It may be as a result of a busy day. 

  Causes of Stress

  According to Daniel (2015), there are five major causes of job stress:  relationship at work, factors intrinsic to the job, role in the organisation, career development, and organisational climate and structure. Intrinsic factors relate to the job systems that stem from working conditions, like workplace physical design or workplace physical environment. These include high noise level, inadequate or low lighting system, heat, smells, poor ventilation and other facets that impede the employees’ senses and subsequently impact employees’ moods and overall psychological state (Chao et al., 2015). Li et al. (2017) reason that a poorly designed office has the capability of creating poor communication network among employees who are needed to frequently get into contact and this can degenerate to poor work condition and consequently stress  to workers. Another job intrinsic factor is long working hours. Most jobs need long working hours which consequently take tool upon workers’  health and make them suffer significant amount of stress (Deng et al., 2019). For example, a person or employee who may have had little or no sleep for longer hours may find that the quality of work and their health are affected as well.

  The third intrinsic job factor is danger and risk. A job involving more risks and dangers put workers in higher levels of stress because when employees are constantly informed of potential risks and are prepared to react to any without hesitation, it brings respiration changes, about rush, and muscle tension which are perceived as possibly harmful in the long run.

  New technology is another job intrinsic factor. With the introduction of new know-hows into the work atmosphere, employees have to adapt constantly to new equipment, new strategies/ways of working, and new systems (Haque & Aston, 2016). New technologies serve as a major stressor owing to the pressure that comes with them.  For example, being trained with present-day techniques maybe a burden for employees who were trained and applied training techniques the traditional ways.  Work under-load and overload are other intrinsic job factors.

  Another factor that causes stress is role in an organization. When the expectations and roles of an employee within a company are defined vividly and comprehended, stress incidences are minimized (Daniel, 2015).  Nonetheless, when roles are unclear within an organization, stress can ensue. Some of the role issues within an organization that can cause stress include role ambiguity and role conflict. Role ambiguity, according to Okab (2017), is defined as the extent to which specific and clear information is lacking with role necessities. That is, an employee perceives themselves to be in a hard situation when their job obligations are unclear and not straightforward stated. Li et al. (2017) state that job ambiguity is one of the aspects of job dissatisfaction that influence employees’ creativity as well as tendency to quit a company. Role conflict, on the other hand, happens when employees are faced with incompatible anticipations in the different social statutes that they occupy.

  The third major cause of stress is relationship at workplaces. The manner in which people relate at their workplaces impacts them as well as their work greatly. Starcke and Brand (2016) argue that working within a stable atmosphere where workers get to know themselves sufficiently well assists in facilitating their work and minimizes pressure. When workers can deal with their peers, bosses, juniors very well, it impacts how their feel  but when they experience poor working ties or relationships with their colleagues, subordinates, and bosses, their stress levels increase (Chao et al., 2015). People who need relationships work best with teams and may suffer within unstable work groups and possibly may be unable to give the best of their abilities and efforts since most employees spend a fortune of their time at their workplaces and, thus, poor working associations can adversely impact them.

  Career development is another factor that often causes stress. Companies have become flatter, implying that responsibility and power now radiate across companies. The labour force has become extra diversified. Career and jobs are getting scarcer. For an individual who had been determined to climb through a company, the challenge recently became greater and chances of learning new skills are now becoming significant requirements. Career development, according to Okab (2017), causes a lot of stress to workers throughout their working lives. Remaining stagnant in a career is fast becoming an inadequate strategy to work, meaning that one has to learn new skills and acquire new knowledge of working throughout the upgrading of an individual’s career (Li et al., 2017).  Fear of redundancy, inadequacy of job security, obsolescence, and several other performance appraisals can result in strain and pressure (Starcke & Brand, 2016). Additionally, the frustration of having attained a career ceiling, or having been over-promoted can yield in stress.

  Last in the inexhaustible list of causes of stress is physical environment.  Conditions of working have been associated with mental and physical health of an employee. Physical environmental factors that can cause stress include exposure to dangerous poisonous substances, hot-room temperatures, and frequent light outs.

  Stress and Job Performance

  Several studies have shown that job stress negatively impact employee performance, taking into consideration various factors that are involved like job satisfaction (Chao et al., 201; Okab, 2017). According to a study that was conducted by Li et al. (2017) revealed that factors like role conflict, workload, and insufficient monetary reward are prime sources of stress that have the effect of decreasing employee performance. Chih et al. (2017) examined the effect of occupational stress among teachers and established that stress causes absenteeism among teachers, causes them to quit employment, and makes them less likely to pursue growth in their teaching career, implying a negative correlation between stress and job performance. Nevertheless, contention exists among academia and scholars about the correlation with respect to various organizational settings. Four kinds of relationship have been argued to exist and these include the negative linear association which implies that productivity results in a decrease in stress; stress that is not negative can have considerable effect in that productivity may raise as a result of stress, thus, insinuating a positive correlation between stress and job performance; there can be a curved or U-shaped association whereby stress may result in increase in productivity up to some limit and thereafter declines as the individual gradually falls into a state of distress; and there cannot exist a relationship between stress and job performance (Khamisa et al., 2015; Kula, 2017).

  Okab (2017) reasons that depending on its degree, job stress can either be harmful or helpful to job performance, pointing out that when it is absent, job challenge is restricted and performance becomes low. Conversely, when stress slowly rises, job performance tends to increase since stress assists the employee to collect and employ resources needed to meet the requirements of a job (Michelle et al., 2018). Starcke and Brand (2016) contend that constructive (eustress) functions to instil encouragement in employees and assists them handle job challenges, implying that stress is a fertilizer of innovation and creativity since it pushes employees’ to perform beyond their limits to have the job accomplished and, therefore, increase their productivity. As this continues, a point comes when stress reaches its saturation point that corresponds to employees’ daily performance capabilities. Past this point, stress gives no sign of betterment of an employee’s performance. Distress (excessive stress) is injurious since it interferes with employees’ capability to perform, causing a start of sharp of performance to a point where the worker loses the capability of coping with, cannot make suitable decisions, and portrays inconsistent behaviours (Khamisa et al., 2015). The employee, at the breaking point, becomes devastated and no more feels like working and their performance becomes zero and this may result in absenteeism and subsequently the employee may get fired or resign. Chih et al. (2017) add that the rise in job stress has become a great problem to employers since it minimizes the level of performance in jobs, increasing absenteeism cases, contributes to the involvement of employees in alcoholism and drugs.

  According to Michelle et al. (2018), productivity is simply a measure of the quantity and quality of work done in relation to the cost of resources the work requires to be done.  Michelle et al. (2018) reason that to gauge human resource productivity within an organization, there is a need to consider the unit of labour cost per unit output, pointing out that individual performance depends upon three factors, the degree of effort, ability to work, and the support given to the individual. The relationship existing amongst these factors is that performance is equal to the product of employees’ ability (A), effort (S) and support (S). In the event any of the three factors is absent or minimized, there will be adverse impact upon performance (P), implying that performance will shrink. Chih et al. (2017) reason that while productivity is measured in terms of labour output per hour, it is not the case that a company will make extra money because more output may not be traded but accumulated as inventory. Moreover, Starcke and Brand (2016) described job performance as consisting of four facets: (i) general performance, (ii) technical performance; (iii) human performance; and administrative performance. Chen et al. (2017) perceived job performance as the product of skill, the nature of work conditions, and effort. Skills include employees’ abilities, knowledge, and competencies; effort is the motivation degree that a worker puts forth towards finishing a job; and the nature of work conditions refers to the accommodation degree of these conditions in facilitating workers’ performance. Kula (2017) tested the relationship between job performance and work stressors such as workload pressure, ambiguity, performance pressure, home-work interface, role conflicts, and relationship with other workers and found out that role ambiguity and role conflict have a positive association with stressors against the common knowledge while the association is found to be negative between job performance and the other stressors. 

  Stress Management

  Khamisa et al. (2015) indicate that stress can be handled in two ways: organizational and individual approaches.  According to Khamisa et al. (2015), the individual approach com[rises of exercises, like riding bicycles, walking, practicing yoga, attending aerobic classes, swimming, jogging, and playing tennis, among other activities. Individual approach can also occur through relaxation: people can minimize tension via relaxation strategies, like hypnosis, meditation, and biofeedback (Kula, 2017). The objective of the individual techniques is to attain a state of deep relaxation during which the worker feels physically relaxed somehow delinked from the immediate surrounding and delinked from body sensations (Chih et al. (2017). Additionally, relaxation exercises lower employees’ blood pressure, heart rates, and other physiological stress signs. Opening up also helps in minimizing individual stress. A healthy reaction to periods or moments of crisis is to confide in other people. Employees may find it challenging to discuss personal traumas with other people. However, self-disclosure can minimize the degree of stress and give them extra positive perception about life.

  Further, Khamisa et al. (2015) explain that organizational technique to stress  management includes employee training programs, effective downward and upward communication within the organization, improvement in employee policies (like incentives, welfare packages, pension schemes), betterment in the physical work environment, good job design, and management ought to provide technical support to workers.

  Third strategy to stress management is referred to as defense mechanism. Defense mechanisms are unconscious approaches employed to safeguard oneself from difficulties, failures, problems, along with other stressors (Chen et al., 2017). Through the use of defense mechanisms, people tend to cope by way of concealing stress as well as adopting rationalization as substitutes to actual management of a challenge (Yemi, 2015). Defense mechanism techniques include repression, suppression, rationalization, fantasy, displacement, and denial. These approaches emphasize the significance of stress and its management besides providing further support for the perception that stress has an effect upon performance.

  Methodology

  Research Design

  This study will employ a descriptive research design to investigate the impacts of workplace stress upon performance. The strategy will be adopted since it enables researchers to gather large amount of information/data from a sizeable population in economical way while depicting extra accurate picture of occurrences at a given time (Michelle et al., 2018). Descriptive research technique is also designed to provide precise data regarding a phenomenon and draw inference wherever possible (Lamb & Kwok, 2016).

  Sample and Sampling Technique

  The targeted population for this study will be three hundred employees in companies within London. The justification for the three hundred respondents is informed by the argument that a researcher should be able to choose a sample size that they can access conveniently within the study’s timeframe (Chen et al., 2017). Convenience sampling technique will be employed for this study. Sampling is crucial in research since it enables researchers to select a section or proportion of the population to represent the whole population from which they obtain pertinent data with the use of suitable sampling techniques (Yemi, 2015).  The convenience sampling technique will be used to select the participants for this study to ensure that participants would be available across the study since in convenience sampling, participants are chosen depending on their accessibility and ease of recruitment for the researcher (Lamb & Kwok, 2016).

  Data and Data Collection

  To achieve the objective of this study, both qualitative and quantitative data will be used. Data sources will both be secondary and primary. Primary data will be gathered questionnaires which will be distributed among the study sample. The questionnaires will be designed in a simple and easy manner to enable the study participants understand the questions. The questionnaires will comprise of open ad closed-ended questions: the close-ended questions will directly relate to the study topic so that the respondents’ answers will be controlled and restricted with regard to research objectives and this equally provided room for comparative analysis (Chen et al., 2017). Conversely, the open-ended questions will be intended at giving the respondents the liberty to express their viewpoints without restrictions or constrains (Yemi, 2015). Interview will also be employed to help verify and confirm the answers in the questionnaires.

  Additionally, secondary data will be obtained from journals, government publications, institutional reports, newspapers, online libraries, the Internet, and other sources. These sources will give the researcher extensive data regarding the impact of stress on employee productivity and will allow the researcher to put the study in context of existing knowledge and broaden their understanding of the study topic (Lamb & Kwok, 2016). In the researcher’s bid to collect data for this study, authorization or permission will be sought from relevant authorities. Questionnaires will be distributed through mail and proxy.

  Data Analysis

  Logical analysis and content analysis techniques will be used to analyze this study’s qualitative data from secondary sources. Percentages and frequencies will be employed for quantitative data assessment to define the percentage of participants choosing different responses. Data gathered from the field will be inputted in SPSS and descriptive analysis obtained.

  Ethical Considerations

  Various moral principles will be taken into consideration during this study. The researcher will ensure that the respondents will not be exposed to any form of harm, like with regard to their family life, employment situation, harassment, and relationships. Before recruiting the respondents, informed consent will be sought from them. Sufficient information about the study, its goal, processes, advantages, disadvantages, and dangers that the respondents will possibly be exposed to, among other information will be explained to the respondents (Yemi, 2015). The researcher will also ensure that the identity of the respondents is kept confidential and anonymous throughout the study. Additionally, the researchers will be assured that the information that they will provide during the study will solely be used for the study and not for any other reason.

  Limitations of the Study

  Various limitations will characterize this study. First, the respondent are likely to be unwilling to provide certain information for reasons of fear. They are also likely to find it hard to appear for interviews and to participate in the study in their bid to minimize contact for fear of contracting Covid-19. Conducting interviews remotely will bar the researcher from getting to gather body language impressions. The inability to move from city to city due to Covid-19 and lockdowns will possibly make collection of data challenging and somewhat costly.

  Project Plan

  Task	Start Date	End Date	Durations (Days)
  Proposal  Writing and Defense	1-Feb-21	2-Mar-21	30
  Corrections and Proposal Approval	2-Mar-21	8-Mar-21	7
  Data Collection	8-Mar-21	5-Jun-21	90
  Data Analysis and Interpretation	5-Jun-21	3-Aug-21	60
  Dissertation Writing and Defense	4-Aug-21	3-Sep-21	30
  Dissertation Correction	4-Sep-21	17-Sep-21	14
  Dissertation Submission	18-Sep-21	20-Sep-21	2
  Dissertation Publication	21-Sep-21	4-Oct-21	14