While stress in the workplace is hardly a new phenomenon, there are some things that employers can do to help employees cope better with stress. And it’s not just employers who have a responsibility here either says Rizwan Ahmed CPA. As important as it is for businesses to offer assistance in this area, employees also must take action when their employer does not offer much support.
The following points highlight five ways in which business stress impacts workers’ health.
1) Stress Affects Decision‐Making Skills
Stress makes people focus on immediate problems and any possible solutions that could end or ease the stressful situation right away. As a result, they tend to keep postponing the bigger decisions until the stressful situation gets resolved. Unfortunately, when stressed out enough, they may end up making wrong decisions in the heat of the moment, which can have a negative effect on their career and personal lives.
2) Stress Causes Mistakes at Work
When people are under pressure, they usually concentrate so hard on completing a task that they sometimes forget to double‐check their work. If an employee is constantly stressed out due to work issues, then errors in judgment or mistakes in assigned tasks may become frequent occurrences. This could result not just in poor performance reviews, but also in lost clients and revenues for the business. So what can you do about this? Ensure that your business has a clear stress policy in place, complete with procedures for reporting abnormal levels of stress at work. When employees know where to turn for support when feeling stressed out, there is a better chance that they will do so in a timely manner says Rizwan Ahmed CPA.
3) Stress Affects Teamwork
Sometimes, employees who are stressed out have the tendency to withdraw from their team and work solo instead of being engaged with others on assigned tasks. This can be quite problematic for your business if stress levels get too high because teamwork is one of the key elements required to ensure success. In case any of your employees start acting this way, it’s important that you recognize this behavior pattern and have a discussion with them about it.
4) Stress Increases Sickness Absenteeism
Stress can cause increased absenteeism at work due to sickness or non‐occupational injuries such as back pain, headaches, or stomach complaints. So, what do you do to prevent this from happening? As a first step, it is important that your business has a clear and effective absence management policy in place. This way, employees will know exactly what steps to take if they must miss work due to sickness or injury.
5) Stress Leads To Increased Risk of On‐The‐Job Burnout
If you see an increase in stress levels as well as a decrease in productivity among your employees. Then there’s a good chance that some of them may be suffering from job burnout. While stress can cause people to become less productive at work. Burnout leads them to feel extremely exhausted at the end of each workday. They don’t even have enough energy left for anything else but going home and relaxing. So, if your employees are burnt out. It’s important that you help them recover before their productivity levels drop even further.
Some people are amazed at the number of corporations that have, in recent years, collapsed. But all too often these companies lay off many employees who are then forced to seek other jobs. Such large-scale dismissals can be traumatic for individuals and families. Unemployment is also to have severe psychological consequences. The feeling of not being in need or wanted by society is not only dispiriting. But may also bring about serious health problems.
While it’s no secret that stress has negative effects on an individual’s health. Scientists are only now beginning to learn how stress due to unemployment affects a person’s physical well-being. According to a study conducted by Dr. Thomas House from the University of Manchester Medical, exposure to stressful working conditions increases the risk of a heart attack.
Conclusion:
Anxiety is a normal part of life that everyone experiences at one time or another explains Rizwan Ahmed CPA. However, when anxiety becomes overwhelming or turns into phobias and panic attacks, an individual may have developed an anxiety disorder. Severe stress can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Where nightmares and flashbacks make some people relive distant traumatic events for years after their occurrence. Also known as “shell shock combat stress reaction was first diagnosed in soldiers in World War I. When they would suddenly break down and be unable to function normally.