Stress is perceived as pressure from the environment which makes a strain within a person. It is the result of the interaction between a situation and an individual which has both psychological and physical effects. Stress is also viewed as a normal reaction that comes from a human being. Bodies are built to experience this for a short time in response to various stimuli. Extra stress hormones and adrenaline are released to help the body when faced with perceived threat. But when these hormones activation gets longer the chemical change wreaks havoc on one’s body whose effect can be detrimental to one’s health and organisations’ success.

The most common stressors today are in the workplace. Employees face an array of demands from strict deadlines, dynamic environments; making ends meets and juggling family life.

As leaders, we may think all is well with our teams but a closer look at some of the manifestations may show signs of work related stress. These include feelings (such as fatigue, anxiety, depression), weak mental capacity (memory loss, difficulty in concentration, problem solving) and physical symptoms (difficulty in breathing, palpitations, headaches etc.). If stress persists it may lead to mental and physical ill health. Staff behaving in uncharacteristically depicting ways like snapping at the boss, or crying over the things they would not normally do, signs of being overly emotional, edgy and highly irritable may be symptoms of stress. While some can even get to the point of missing their lunch break in pursuance of work the effects can be detrimental. Usually, work related mishaps are translated to the family resulting in serious conflicts simply because the relationship between work and family life is likened to a circle. When you are happier at home you perform better at work and when you perform better at work you are more pleasant at home. Employees may however fail to control the circle as proposed especially when they feel beholden to the demands of their employment.

Jeffrey Pfeiffer a guru in management addresses the drivers of stress in a work environment as having negative impact on human health. He cited work overload, overtime, skills underutilisation, limited resources, understaffing, organisational justice and climate, poor working environment as common stressors in the work place. Pfeiffer says that employees are only human and have a life outside work which equally competes for their attention. We have an obligation as the leadership to ensure work demands do not overly affect the social life of employees. Today, long working hours have become the norm for successful employees interested in advancing their careers. They may be a status symbol and have become inevitable in certain roles. As such employees drench themselves under pressure to signal how valuable they are or simply to get their work done; these long working hours have become synonymous with successful careers.

When an employee is dealing with looming work deadlines, difficult work relationships, family problems or bereavement, the body switches to the emergency stress response mode. To counter such workplace and personal ordeals, managers have many strategies they can employ to reduce stress levels in teams. There are more compelling reasons to understand and eradicate the causes of stress in any organisation than pretend its non-existence. Good management practice includes assessing the risk of stress among employees. Management interventions to reduce stress may take two approaches, organisational and individual. Organisational structures affect work relationships, workload (both overload & underload) and how change programme will be managed. Organisational culture may be a main stressor in the workplace. Leadership that is critical, unsupportive, and unresponsive or has bullying tendencies may actually cause more stress to employees. When organisations have open and effective communication channels, organisational stress may be nabbed in the bud. As leaders let us be drivers of organisations’ visions by providing enabling environments and resources necessary for employees to excel in their work.

It is important to note that individuals differ in their risk of experiencing stress and their vulnerability to the adverse effects of stress. Employees need to ensure healthy eating while exercising regularly, these are well known to reduce stress levels. It explains why organisations that provide robust staff wellness programmes have happier employees. Employees may be trained on how to manage organisational stress .The best safeguard against organisational stress is to build employee resilience   through developing their capacities to face, adapt and cope with challenges at work and at home. Learning how to increase resilience and deal well with stress could be an employee most important lesson in life.

William James said,” The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.’ This article has come out of the realisation that the old covenant between employer and employee wherein companies used to offer job security in exchange of adequate performance and exhibition of loyalty has evolved. It’s now also the role of the employee to manage their own careers showing commitment to both the company and their homes. As leaders therefore, our role is to support this commitment.

Emmanuel Jinda is the Managing Consultant of PROSERVE Consulting Group, a leading supplier of Professional Human Resources and Management services locally, regionally and internationally. He can be contacted at Tel: 263 773004143 or 263 4 772778 or visit our website at www.proservehr.com