Employees Are Stressed Out

Stressed Out at Work? Help is on the Way

“Nowadays, it seems more and more employees are increasingly stressed at work” (Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnelly, Jr., Konopaske, 2012, p.221). Everyone who has ever held a job suffers from work related stress at some point. Research has uncovered several reasons why employees express high stress levels. Ironically, research has shown that employees are stressed when surviving a layoff. All of this stress leads to financial impacts on organizations; to keep their numbers in the red they must find ways to help valued employees combat stress.

Primary Stressors

According to an article in Forbes’ magazine, “A study of 22,347 employees across 12 countries including the UK and US, revealed that more than half of employees cited inadequate staffing as the biggest cause of stress in the workplace. US employers agreed that inadequate staffing was the second largest cause of workplace stress after ‘lack of work-life balance’” (Higginbottom 2014, p. 1).

The issue of work-life balance has become a hot topic. For many the pursuit of a balanced work-life is just a dream. “With so many of us torn between juggling heavy workloads, managing relationships and family responsibilities, and squeezing in outside interest, it’s no surprise that more than one in four Americans can describe themselves as “super stressed” (Mental Health, 2016, p. 1).

Inadequate staffing is the number one global reason for stress in the workplace according to the study in Forbes’ magazine. “As organizations attempt to increase productivity, while decreasing work-force size, quantitative over load increases (as does stress)” (Gibson et al., 20102, p. 198). Along with work overload, individual stressors to perform better create stress in the workplace.

Survivor Stress

Many employees who survive a layoff are often stressed. Survivors are grateful to be employed, but are faced with rising workloads, trust issues with management, and guilt that their work friends are gone. A few employees with survivor stress will frantically look for a new job, anxious that they may be next or their jobs will dramatically change. “Research suggests that after a layoff occurs, the percent of employees who voluntarily leave the organization can increase by 31 percent” (Gibson et al., 2012 p. 221).

“Organizational psychologists call it “layoff survivor syndrome” the collection of emotional, psychological and physical reactions long documented in workers who remain on the job. Being left behind, they say, can sometimes be as distressing as being let go” (Aleccia, 2008, p. 1). To help combat the “layoff survivor syndrome” psychologists recommend going through the same grieving stages as losing a loved one. Other researchers recommend open discussions