Abstract
Purpose
The goal of the paper is to examine the phenomenon of workplace stress and its relation to the organizational performance of employees in the UAE context. The problem of workplace stress has been in existence for a while in the UAE setting due to the rise in the demand for quality and the lack of opportunities for employees to meet the increasing workload. Therefore, there is the need to deploy an in-depth analysis of the problem and study the connection between different stress management tools and the quality of organizational performance among employees.
Research Design
To explore the issue in-depth, a qualitative method was used. The phenomenological research design allowed us to explore the problem in-depth and develop a proper understanding thereof. With a sample of 10 studies, the phenomenon of organizational performance, as well as the problems associated with stress management, were scrutinized.
Findings
The outcomes of the analysis indicate that the tools aimed at reducing the levels of stress among employees have to be focused on both individual and external factors. Companies will have to combine individual consultations with a general framework for improving workplace conditions and offering staff members educational and career-related opportunities. As a result, a gradual increase in performance rates and the management of workplace stress will become possible.
Problem
The phenomenon of stress in the workplace setting has become prevailing over the past few decades. The reasons for the observed problem to take place include mostly the rise in the amount of data that employees have to manage on a regular basis and the ensuing increase in the responsibility and workplace pressure (Al Mazrouei, Al Faisal, Hussein, El Sawaf, & Wasfy, 2015b). Therefore, the phenomenon of workplace stress has gained a profound effect on the quality of performance in the organizational setting, causing an increase in errors, instances of miscommunication, and turnover rates (Al Mazrouei et al., 2015b).
Herein lies the importance of the research and urgency to address the situation and explore various stress management approaches and their effect on employees’ organizational performance. Thus, the research question that this study seeks to answer is what stress management strategies can be utilized to enhance the organizational performance of staff members, as well as how to improve the current stress management frameworks to handle the core of the problem. This paper is structured to contain a literature review followed by an explanation of methodology and the analysis of the results. The paper ends with a conclusion and recommendations for the UAE business setting.
Literature Review
The connection between workplace stress and organizational performance delivered by staff members can be considered as confirmed. As the study by Jacobs, Johnson, and Hassell (2018) shows, the quality of services delivered by employees that suffer from consistent workplace stress is reduced immediately and has drastic effects on the overall performance of a company.
Furthermore, long-term implications of the lack of attention to workplace stress and the presence of negative factors in the organizational environment lead to the development of numerous health issues in staff members, as well as the gradual drop in the quality of communication within the selected workplace (Al Mazrouei, Al Faisal, Hussein, El Sawaf, & Wasfy, 2015a). Therefore, it is critical to introduce viable tools for managing the issue of workplace stress.
Among the causes of workplace stress, several factors should be mentioned. The lack of life-work balance is one of them since it affects staff members on a very profound level and prevents them from meeting their needs in both professional and personal lives (Lim, 2014).
Because of the necessity to pay more attention to professional issues, people will have to reduce the time spent on managing their personal life in the described situation. While the lack of focus on their personal concerns will already imply a significant dose of stress, the inability to meet the requirements set in the workplace as a result of dissatisfaction will cause even greater distress and lead to them severely underperforming. More importantly, the identified dilemma may also entail health concerns, affecting employees deeply on a psychological and physiological level.
Poor workplace conditions are also a factor in increased stress rates. Without the setting that allows one to feel comfortable, focusing on tasks becomes practically impossible, with the levels of stress rising consistently and the performance quality decreasing among employees. The research by Goh, Pfeffer, and Zenios (2015) indicates that the lack of consistency in the workplace setting and the absence of control over the factors associated with the emotional well-being of staff members decreases drastically.
The lack of attention to the factors that contribute to staff’s propensity toward developing workplace burnouts and anxiety, as well as other health issues, including both mental and physical ones, causes a significant drop in the levels of organizational performance among employees due to the inability of the latter to meet the set quality standards.
In addition, the link between workplace stress and performance levels can also be explored from the perspective of staff motivation. Researches indicate that employees are unwilling to excel in their performance as long as they experience consistent stress and are forced to work in poor conditions (Jetha, Kernan, & Kurowski, 2017). Moreover, studies indicate that the specified setting affects the staff’s ability to recognize and accept corporate values when making important decisions in the workplace setting and performing quality control processes (Jetha et al., 2017). Therefore, the issue of workplace conditions can be deemed as one of the key factors in defining the problem of workplace stress.
Even in the most strenuous settings, employees tend not to quit their job immediately but, instead, develop coping mechanisms that allow them to reduce their exposure to stress factors. Particularly, most stress management approaches focus on two key factors that determine the development of workplace stress, which are strain, leading to burnouts, and work engagement allowing employees to be motivated to perform. Wellness programs aimed at reducing workplace pressure, as well as reorganization of work and the realignment of proprieties can be regarded as the key approaches toward managing stress in the workplace (Dev, 2018).
The acquisition of coping skills should be deemed as another important strategy that helps to reduce the negative impact of workplace stress (Goh et al., 2015). Finally, counseling and the creation of programs aimed at rehabilitating staff members that have been suffering significant stress in the workplace environment should be seen as another stress management technique that is typically applied in the organizational environment (Dev, 2018).
The approaches listed above should be applied to the instances of workplace stress at its different stages, the former ones being used at the onset of workplace burnouts, whereas the latter ones being considered once workplace stress has affected employees considerably.
It is notable that the most effective workplace stress management tools involve handling the problem at the corporate level and implying a change in the principles of work organization, whereas the less effective ones suggest handling the issue of stress at a personal level. Indeed, according to the studies considered for the review, only 3 articles suggest the use of relaxation techniques such as yoga as the means of addressing the problem of workplace stress (Dev, 2018).
To their credit, the authors of the specified studies do not endeavor to prove that the use of self-improvement techniques should be seen as the ultimate tool for coping with the increasing amount of stress in the workplace. Instead, these researches show that the application of the described tools serves as the means of changing employees’ attitude toward stressful factors and preventing stress factors from affecting them on a deeply personal level, thus avoiding the development of health concerns.
According to Tetrick and Winslow (2015), out of the interventions that were applied to a particular case of workplace stress, “individuals in both the mindfulness-based and yoga interventions experienced significant pre/post intervention reductions in perceived stress and sleep quality relative to participants in the control group” (p. 590). However, the results of the study also indicate that the introduction of yoga and similar techniques aimed at addressing the problem on an internal level has not yielded significant changes in the degree of exposure to stress (Goh et al., 2015).
All of the studies considered for the analysis insist that the use of stress management techniques that allow addressing issues on both organizational and interpersonal levels serve as the best options for addressing the problem of stress in staff members and lead to creating healthy working environments. For instance, organizational-level interventions, while being admittedly rare and requiring further innovative improvements, provide plenty of opportunities for reducing the level of stress to which staff members are exposed.
Multimodal programs bear particularly high relevance for the identified problem since they allow embracing a wide range of factors that are defined by the organizational setting, personal characteristics of staff members, and the communication framework deployed within a company. Specifically, recent reports show that the reconsideration of occupational health and safety standards and strategies affects the levels of stress management and, therefore, allows increasing the levels of organizational performance significantly. For instance, Pignata, Winefield, Boyd, and Provis (2018) prove that the integration of interventions that allow balancing social exchange in the target environment is likely to produce a significantly positive effect on the management of stress levels and the enhancement of employees’ organizational performance.
Methodology
To answer the research question regarding the factors that define workplace stress, the link between workplace stress and organizational performance, and the approaches toward enhancing the latter through the management of workplace stress issues, a review of the existing studies has been performed. Since the nature of the research question was primarily qualitative and required the exploration of the existing methods, the review was regarded as the most effective method of performing the study. To answer the question and locate the solutions to the problem, ten articles were chosen as the key source of information.
The focus on the problem of stress management in the organizational environment was the key criteria for choosing the articles. The themes that each study had to address were to include at least stress management and organizational performance, although other issues were also explored by association. Furthermore, the following keywords were used during the search process: “stress management,” “organizational performance,” “workplace stress,” and “stress management strategies,” among others. Thus, an all-embracive analysis of the problem could be performed, and the key issues could be located and described succinctly.
In addition, the articles were selected based on whether they were published in a peer-reviewed journal. The identified characteristic was used as the key criterion for the credibility of the sources, although authors’ credentials were also considered as an important indicator of the trustworthiness of a source. Some of the papers were excluded since they covered a very narrow aspect of workplace stress and did not contribute to the argument.
In the course of the search for the appropriate resources, the databases such as ResearchGate and similar academic resources were used as the primary location of the crucial studies. While other journal repositories were also considered as important sources from which essential data could be retrieved, the specified databases were deemed as the most important in identifying and selecting appropriate journals and articles.
Furthermore, the Google Scholar resource was used to search for appropriate material for the research. Thus, the integrity of the research and the quality of reference material were retained. The sample size of 10 articles was selected for the analysis according to the recommendations provided by Suresh (2014). To select the sample, the purposeful sampling strategy was chosen since a set of criteria for the items to be selected for the analysis had been developed prior to the analysis.
During the data analysis, the method of phenomenology with the subsequent coding and decoding was utilized to locate key links between stress management and organizational performance. Particularly, structured text in the form of studies and articles was used to determine the essential links between the specified variables. In the course of the analysis, key themes were arranged according to their significance. For instance, the strategies for managing workplace stress and increasing the levels of organizational performance were categorized according to the efficacy that they were claimed to have on the performance rates and motivation levels among employees.
Discussion and Recommendations
The results of the research show that the combination of the approach is based on the improvement of workplace conditions and the introduction of assistance programs that allow employees to adjust to the changes in the corporate environment and the demands for quality. Moreover, the outcomes of the analysis show that there is a drastic need for competent staff in the UAE business setting. The described problem pertains to the issues in the current educational system rather than the realm of business, yet it also demonstrates that organizations need to adapt to the changes in the external environment and develop approaches toward handling the shortage of qualified staff.
For instance, it is highly recommended to design courses that will allow employees to acquire new competencies and increase their level of proficiency in an array of areas. As a result, UAE companies will be able to hire people and educate them to build a competent workforce that will be capable of meeting quality standards.
Furthermore, the emphasis on creating an interdisciplinary team of highly qualified experts is also likely to have a profoundly positive effect on the UAE business setting since it will help organizations to raise the levels of staff motivation and engagement, simultaneously investing in their progress. Consequently, the quality of employees’ performance will rise consistently, and the rates of stress will be reduced significantly due to the even distribution of responsibilities and the reasonable amount of workload.
Another important tool that can be utilized in the UAE setting to reduce the pressure of workplace stress and enhance the performance of employees is a combined strategy aimed at addressing the issue of occupational health and safety standards. While the current workplace setting in a range of UAE companies can be regarded as moderately positive, there are issues regarding workplace conflicts and miscommunication that need to be managed properly (Suleman, Hussain, Shehzad, Syed, & Raja, 2018).
Thus, the strategies for handling interpersonal, cross-disciplinary, and cross-cultural issues will have to be designed to minimize the stress under which employees in the UAE setting work (Goh et al., 2015). The proposed technique is likely to lead to a significant increase in the performance levels among staff members in the UAE business setting.
The issue of communication within UAE organizations, in general, should be seen as a critical point of discussion since it has been addressed in eight of the ten studies selected for this research. It is critical to ensure that staff members are capable of communicating their concerns and problems to managers; thus, the problem of facing stress-related factors can be addressed. As soon as managers become aware of the issues that impede employee performance and make them experience significant stress, solutions for handling specific situations will be created. The identified approach will also allow designing individual strategies for meeting the needs of each employee independently.
As a result, the problems associated with scheduling, time management, workload, and employee benefits, as well as the concerns regarding the lack of opportunities for professional growth and the relevant concerns, will be addressed. As soon as a comprehensive program that will include the specified element is completed, utilizing an employee-specific framework for handling the lack of motivation caused by workplace stress will be essential for improving performance rates.
Conclusion
The problem of workplace stress has been occurring quite frequently in the modern business environment, the UAE corporate setting not being an exception. An overview of the existing studies has shown that the connection between workplace stress and the organizational performance of staff members is directly related to each other. Therefore, tools for reducing the impact of stress factors will have to be designed, which will require improving workplace conditions in the UAE context by reducing the workload, creating an effective communication system, and offering employees opportunities for professional growth.
By investing in staff members’ personal and professional development, UAE companies will be able to reduce the rates of stress and increase the overall quality of performance. Particularly, the selected approach will allow UAE firms to attract a number of qualified employees and create a setting in which they will feel comfortable, thus being able to do their best in managing their workplace responsibilities.
The problem of stress management and the effects thereof on staff’s performance rates is an important HR issue that has warranted a thorough and elaborate discussion. By focusing on the creation of additional opportunities for staff members and building the workplace setting that can be characterized as friendly, comfortable, and aspirational, UAE managers will handle the issue of workplace stress and its impact on employees’ performance. Particularly, HR managers will have to pay attention to the problem of miscommunication in the target setting since it may lead to a rapid increase in dissatisfaction levels, a rapid growth of stress rates, and the ensuing drop in productivity.
References
Al Mazrouei, A. M., Al Faisal, W., Hussein, H. Y., El Sawaf, E. M., & Wasfy, A. S. (2015b). Job-related stress among physicians at Dubai Health Authority Hospitals-Dubai-UAE. American Journal of Psychology and Cognitive Science, 1(3), 83-88.
Al Mazrouei, A. M., Al Faisal, W., Hussein, H., El Sawaf, E., & Wasfy, A. (2015a). Determinants of workplace stress among healthcare professionals in Dubai, physicians experience. Advanced Applied Psychology, 1(1), 31-34.
Dev, S. (2018). Effects of procrastination behavior, stress tolerance and study habits on academic achievements of Indian Students residing in India (Kerala) and UAE. Research in Social Sciences and Technology, 3(3), 16-31.
Goh, J., Pfeffer, J., Zenios, S. A., & Rajpal, S. (2015). Workplace stressors & health outcomes: Health policy for the workplace. Behavioral Science & Policy, 1(1), 43-52.
Jacobs, S., Johnson, S., & Hassell, K. (2018). Managing workplace stress in community pharmacy organisations: Lessons from a review of the wider stress management and prevention literature. International Journal of Pharmacy Practice, 26(1), 28-38.
Jetha, A., Kernan, L., & Kurowski, A. (2017). Conceptualizing the dynamics of workplace stress: A systems-based study of nursing aides. BMC Health Services Research, 17(1), 12-23.
Lim, H. L. (2014). Managing young professional talent in the UAE: Work motivators and gender differences. International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences, 3(12), 874-882.
Pignata, S., Winefield, A. H., Boyd, C. M., & Provis, C. (2018). A Qualitative Study of HR/OHS Stress Interventions in Australian Universities. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(1), 103-118.
Suleman, Q., Hussain, I., Shehzad, S., Syed, M. A., & Raja, S. A. (2018). Relationship between perceived occupational stress and psychological well-being among secondary school heads in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. PloS One, 13(12), 1-11.
Suresh, S. (2014). Nursing research and statistics (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Elsevier Health Sciences.
Tetrick, L. E., & Winslow, C. J. (2015). Workplace stress management interventions and health promotion. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 2(1), 583-603.