Effective and Viable Mind-Body Stress Reduction in the Workplace

Bibliography

Ruth Q. Wolever, K. J. (2012). Effective and Viable Mind-Body Stress Reduction in the Workplace: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

Akihito SHIMAZU, J. D. (2014). Psychological Detachment from Work during Off-job Time: Predictive Role of Work and Non-work Factors in Japanese Employees. Industrial Health .

STRESS

Issue:

One of the major problems affecting work life balance in this organisation was Stress. When we interviewed about stress, both manger and employee in the organisation, agreed there was a lot of stress involved while working in this organisation. And both have their own way of dealing stress in the workplace. Manager was more stressed out due to work responsibility and work complexity on her in this company, and her way of dealing stress was not to yell at their employees who were working under her and she get relived by doing stress related exercise whenever she gets time and she also help her employees who are stressed out while working by giving small incentives such as bringing coffee, breakfast, etc. and asking her doctor friends for suggestion to help her employees and also by watching videos related to stress coping ideas or techniques on YouTube. Whereas front-desk worker was stressed out due to daily hassles and role-overload on him and his co-workers, he would release his stress by having small breaks in-between work and go out for smoke.

Actions taken by Organisation:

There was no action taken from the management of the organisation to deal with stress in workplace for employees. One of the main reasons was due to budget concerns within the organisation, which was mentioned by manager and also, she gave an example that incentives she brings in for her employees was from her own purse not from management side.

Effects of this problem (Stress) on Organisation level and personal level: or Symptoms: The Cost of Stress.

It is believed that job satisfaction is directly correlated with the mental health of the workforce and the organizations interest in high productivity (productivity costs) and a stable, permanent workforce. Stress on the other hand is the main cause of problems not only in persons professional but also in their personal lives. It can also create physical and psychosomatic (Mental) symptoms. A stress-filled employee makes wrong decisions and has negative relationships with co-workers.

Most of the organisation don’t take stress seriously which can lead to increase in Financial costs for organisation. Results from last year’s research shows that, in work place environments in the United States of America account for about $180 billion additional health-care expenditures, approximately 8% of the total health-care spending of whole organisation was due to stress related problems.

Recommendation:

Primary prevention needs to be done to work and environmental re-design such as by changing the way job need to be done or the work environment, which is by sharing the work load differently i.e. by introducing flexi-time, job sharing, more consultations about working practices.

They need to build a system to deal with stress in the workplace such Interventions, mainly multimodal interventions i.e., Incorporating both organization-level and individual-level interventions and a small effect was found for relaxation techniques. In a research conducted by few psychology professors, where they conducted Forty-Eight experimental studies with sample of 3736 people and results of these experiments were most pronounced on the following outcome categories: complaints, psychologic resources and responses, and improved  quality of work life and they also found that Cognitive-behavioural interventions are more effective than the other intervention types.

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