Impact of Stress on Employee Well-Being and Workplace Performance Essay

Introduction

Life is characterized by situations that result in negative implications for the operations of humans. This affects the mental health and psychological functioning of individuals. Stress is caused by depression, social deprivation, mental confusion, anxiety, frustration, and fear. Uncertainties emerge in the workplace that affect the normal operations of employees.

For example, the outbreak of COVID-19 led to critical changes, such as forcing employees to work from remote areas, making it difficult to adjust their operations. As a result, switching off was brutal, affecting job stability and causing stress to employees. The following essay discusses stress’s effects on employees executing their duties and how it impacts their well-being.

Main Body

Firms are trying to facilitate their operations by establishing well-performing and sustainable employees. However, employees experience stress that affects their well-being, making it difficult for firms to maintain consistency in their performance and operations. Stress causes health challenges to employees, affecting their survival and distracting them from performing their duties (Saleem et al., 2021). Stressed employees do not concentrate on their work, which minimizes output and productivity.

Different factors contribute to the escalation of stress for employees in an organizational environment. These factors include pressure and excessive workloads that lead to burnout. Minimized control of decision-making and control over duties causes stress. When employees are assigned jobs under unclear roles and expectations, it leads to stress and confusion since there is minimal support from supervisors and colleagues. Most employees cannot balance their personal lives and work, which puts pressure on them and results in elevated stress (Pandey, 2020). This minimizes their engagement and prompts stress and anxiety, affecting their workplace output.

People perceive and respond to stress differently in a manner they think of. Personality traits like resilience and optimism reduce the effect of stressors. Neuroticism personality trait provoke emotions, which make individuals discern circumstances that provoke stress. Adopting policies like problem-solving strategies enables individuals to be more controllable to minimize stress (Jiang et al., 2022). Individuals who depend on problem avoidance strategies increase stress since the stressor is not addressed, only temporarily relieved.

Real or perceived stress creates catastrophic consequences for affected individuals. It affects the physical status, which results in chronic stress that facilitates health challenges like cardiovascular issues. Mental well-being is also affected, whereby stress creates burnout, depression, and anxiety. The cognitive status is affected, whereby work concentration is reduced, poor decisions are made, and memory is lost due to the escalation of stress (Steffey et al., 2023). As a result, efficiency and effectiveness of work is diminished.

Conclusion

In conclusion, stress causes psychological, physical, and mental torture to human life. This results in depression, mental confusion, fear, and social deprivation. In workplaces, stressed employees cannot handle their tasks efficiently and effectively. As a result, work rate and output are reduced significantly, affecting firms’ sustainability and performance. Therefore, managing and recognizing stress is critical in promoting the well-being of employees and minimizing adverse impacts on firms.

References

Jiang, X., Li, X., Dong, X., & Wang, L. (2022). How the big five personality traits related to aggression from benign and malicious envy perspectives. BMC Psychology, 10(1), 1-11. Web.

Pandey, D. L. (2020). Work stress and employee performance: An assessment of the impact of work stress. International Research Journal of Human Resource and Social Sciences, 7(5), 124-135.

Saleem, F., Malik, M. I., & Qureshi, S. S. (2021). Work stress hampering employee performance during COVID-19: Is safety culture needed?Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 655839. Web.

Steffey, M. A., Griffon, D. J., Risselada, M., Buote, N. J., Scharf, V. F., Zamprogno, H., & Winter, A. L. (2023). A narrative review of the physiology and health effects of burnout associated with veterinarian-pertinent occupational stressors. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 10. Web.