Stress In Workplace

ABSTRACT
Stress in the workplace is widely recognized as a major problem faced by people all over the world, in particular the Indian scenario. A number of nascent companies are offering some form of stress management intervention to all their employees. Stress in the workplace acknowledges the role of genetics and environment to some degree; but the type of health promotion arising from this set of beliefs focuses on individual behaviour. Consequently, the workplace is seen as an influence on health in its own right. The attention heretends to be on the organisation and design of work in both its physical and psychosocialdimensions. It needs to be acknowledged that health, as we experience and observe it in the workplace, is produced or manufactured

These principles were set down as early as 1963, in a report from the London Tavistock Institute (Document No. T813) which provided the following general guidelines for job design:
• The job should be reasonably demanding in terms other than sheer endurance and provide at least a minimum of variety.
• The worker should be able to learn on the job and go on learning.
• The job should comprise some area of decision-making.
• There should be some degree of social support and recognition in the workplace.
• The worker should be able to relate what he or she does or produces to social life.
• The worker should feel that the job leads to some sort of desirable future.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), however, draws a less hopeful picture of the reality of working life, pointing out

It is like a badly fitting shoe: environmental demands are not matched to individual ability, or environmental opportunities do not measure up to individual needs and expectations. For example, the individual is able to perform a certain amount of work, but much more is required, or on the other hand no work at all is offered. Another example would be that the worker needs to be part of a social network, to experience a sense of belonging, a sense that life has meaning, but there may be no opportunity to meet these needs in the existing environment and the “fit” becomes bad.Any fit will depend on the “shoe” as well as on the “foot”, on situational factors as well as on individual and group characteristics. The most important situational factors that give rise to “misfit” can be categorized as