Being a student and working at the same time is something that contributes to my stress at times. Whether it be a particular time in your life or dealing with chronic stress, looking at ways to lower that stress is important in maintaining your wellbeing. Steps that I could take and do currently try to take to lower my stress is identifying exactly what is causing me to be stressed and creating solutions, talking to people that I trust about how I am feeling, and finding activities to release stress. Though when viewing an organization with many people to account for, different methods are taken.

Those who work generally will experience stress that is caused by what they do at work and/or the conditions or things that are happening in their personal lives. In the workplace, there are different types of stressors like challenge stressors and hindrance stressors that can result in negative or positive outcomes as we learned in Lecture 6 of Week 9. In terms of hindrance stressors, they can be things like being understaffed and having to do more work or dealing with customers that are difficult. Stress can results from numerous facets. Stressed employees is something that organizations are concerned about because it can cause burnout or health conditions that will put their employees out of the workplace and possibly increase turnover.

Recognizing this, some organizations will offer ways to reduce employee stress through benefits. A common benefit that is offered is having reduced prices to gyms so that employees can reduce stress there. They may also offer reduced rates or free visits to psychologists or therapists. In a study it was found that, “those participants who received one-to-one counselling interventions thought these were effective” (Bhui et al., 2016). Showing that meeting professionals that focus on mental health is effective in reducing stress and is something organizations are offering to help employees cope with stress.

Reference:

Lecture 6 of Week 9

Bhui, K., Dinos, S., Galant-Miecznikowska, M., de Jongh, B., & Stansfeld, S. (2016). Perceptions of work stress causes and effective interventions in employees working in public, private and non-governmental organisations: A qualitative study. BJPsych Bulletin, 40(6), 318–325. https://doi.org/10.1192/pb.bp.115.050823